Tag: Life

What Do You Do For a Living?

by M, posted in Burnout

When I first started this journey, I thought medicine would be everything.  And for a long time, it was. Over the last 16 years I geared my entire life around it - the classes I took, volunteering opportunities, people I networked with, places I've lived.  I'd squeeze in "life" during allowed breaks – sleep, exercise, celebrations, time with my husband, friends and family – all the while patting myself on the back for finding such a great "balance". But as the scales tipped more and more toward medicine the longer I headed down this path, the realization hit me:  I'm no longer working to earn a living, I'm living to work. I watch so many of us continuing down the road we were set on, unsure if we can take another step but pushing forward because that's the only way we know. What if we stop?

Are You Sure You Still Want To Do This?

by M, posted in Burnout

"So before we get this meeting going, I just wanted to announce that J will be going part time, effective May.  We've hired N to take over his role as demand planning manager and they will work in tandem until she gets up to speed." Murmurs on the other end of the conference call blared through my husband's work computer speakers. "He's doing it so he can spend more time with his wife." Silence.Interesting... was that a patronizing tone I heard, or did it fall more along the lines of scoffing laughter - like, can you believe this guy? Sitting in the other room cuddling with my dogs, I waited for J's response.

Glacial grey river through the Hooker Valley Track

Are You Still Hustling For Your Self Worth?

by M, posted in Life

How To Increase Your Instagram Followers - Use pictures that show your face - Use hashtags - 30 max - Follow other people and hope they follow you back - Post every day, even multiple times a day - Comment on other people's stuff - Use Instagram stories and live... As I went down the list of different strategies recently proposed by the Facebook social media strategy group I was in, I was surprised by the inward cringe I was experiencing. Finally, it hit me: We're all still hustling for our self worth.

Sunset over Heceta Beach, OR

To The Doctor Struggling with Burnout: I See You

by M, posted in Burnout

My friend, I remember being where you are, feeling like there wasn't anyone who could possibly understand the darkness I found myself in. The isolation. The inability to explain the full weight of what I dealt with as a primary care physician every day to my very well-intentioned non-medical tribe. The difficulty reconciling the knowledge that I was "living the dream" but in reality was merely existing in a living nightmare, my own personal hell I had spent my entire adult life trying to achieve. I resisted for a long time to share my story - it's not an easy thing to do... it took me 2 years to even admit to my husband that I was struggling, and that in and of itself felt like a failure. Because we should be stronger than this, right?  We knew what we were getting into, we logically understood that we would see and endure a lot of suffering. But to know this is different than to live this reality.

Middle Lewis River Falls, WA

How to Move On With Your Life: Quit Your Parental Guilt

by M, posted in Burnout

"My new schedule is going to be 5 days on, 5 days off!  It'll be like a long weekend every other week, Papa.  J and I are thinking of getting a camper too.. maybe go on those national park trips we've been talking about.  There's so much out here in the Pacific Northwest." "Mmm hmm..." … Continue reading How to Move On With Your Life: Quit Your Parental Guilt

M reflections

Happy Birth-mas-versary!: Reflections on a Year of Reflections

by M, posted in Life

What an epic last full week of 2018! -Christmas -Blog anniversary: 12/26/18 -My birthday!  Due to my scripting (I'm supposed to blame my parents like a good millennial, right?), I'm kind of a grinch about Christmas and since celebrating the 4th anniversary of my 29th birthday is a little cliché, I'll just round out the end of the year with my reflections on a year of Reflections.

How Tickle Me Elmo Stole Thanksgiving

by M, posted in Minimalism

"Give it to me!  I got it first!!!"

"NO YOU DID NOT!  I grabbed it off the shelf first!"

"This Elmo is mine!!!!!!  Bob, tell her I got to this first!"

Bob looked like a man who wanted to disappear into his turtleneck.

"Come on, Nancy.. it's a toy."

"DON'T TELL ME IT'S JUST A TOY!  THIS IS A TICKLE ME ELMO!!  AND IT'S MINE!!!!"

Shaking my head as I walked away, I assessed the chaos that had descended on this Black Friday.

What was this alternate reality I had entered into?

Mountain goats grazing under Mount Rainier

If You Could See Medicine Through My Eyes: Millennial Doctor, M.D.

by M, posted in Doctoring

Last week, the prolific Xrayvsn reached out to me on Twitter and asked if I would be willing to represent the Millennial generation in a 4 way cross-platform collaboration, looking at medicine through the eyes of different generations: Baby Boomer, Generation X, Millennial and Resident Physician.

My first reaction was ,“This is an awesome idea!”, immediately followed by an Oh sh*t moment.  Who am I to speak for an entire generation?  And isn’t our Resident Physician also a millennial??

But, my enthusiasm got the best of me and I couldn’t back out, not when I have the word Millennial in my own name.

These days, I no longer identify myself solely as a doctor but as a storyteller and as such, I’d like to couch my response to Xrayvsn’s request in:

A tale of 4 frogs

Columbia River Gorge View atop of Wind Mountain

Doc, Are You Giving Up On Me? When Is Enough Enough?

by M, posted in Doctoring

"Doc, I'm tired of this."

I looked at V's wan face.  The vibrance that I adored had been sucked out of her over the last 9 months by chemotherapy and radiation.  I remembered the moment she cried in my office, angry I hadn't been the one to tell her that her breast cancer had returned everywhere.

Now she couldn't muster up any emotion - no tears, no anger, no frustration.

Just tired.