Time, Doctors and Work-Life Balance

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Susan Kersley

How will you get your time management sorted?

Doctors contact me saying that one of their aims is to improve their work -life balance. They know what happens when this is too heavily weighted to their work activities, seeing patients, or doing the admin tasks of a busy medical practice and too little towards the rest of life, but feel they are unable to change anything.

This article  has 17 useful tips: http://www.aafp.org/fpm/2001/0600/p60.html

I’ve written a couple of Kindle books (Critical Time management mistakes and More than 80 ways)  on the subject too.

Also there’s the article I wrote which  recently published in the Independent Practitioner: CLICK HERE

If you want to have a quick chat call me here,

or find out about personal coaching here.

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Time management: is it something you struggle with?

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Susan Kersley

Attention doctors, physicians, registrars, junior doctors, private medical practitioners:

Time Management mistakes nearly every doctor makes.

Do you struggle to get things done through the day? Do you wonder what’s happened to the time and feel upset at how little you get done?

Do you notice that some of your colleagues seem to cope much better than you do with the amount of work there is to do each day?

What might happen if you carry on like this?

  • You are less and less efficient in relation to your medical work.
  • You forget about the life you had before you worked as a doctor.
  • Your friends and family complain that they never see you.
  • You take most of your holiday to unwind.
  • You regret becoming a doctor….

But it doesn’t have to be like that. There are simple strategies you can adopt to take you to a place when you can:

  • leave work at a reasonable time
  • be able to relax and enjoy life away from work more
  • feel happier at work and get things done more efficiently and effectively
  • learn simple ways to make a difference in your life.

Here are the strategies you’ve been waiting for :

    • 3 reasons why doctors struggle with time management
    • 7 mistakes doctors make in relation to time
    • Simple ways to ways to overcome these
    • Benefits of managing your time more effectively

 

Time Management Mistakes nearly every doctor makes

Get it now for less than the price of a cup of coffee!!

 

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What is your way to leave work behind you when you go home?

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Susan Kersley

One of the challenges of being a doctor is worrying so much about what’s happened during the day that you may find it very difficult to ‘let go’ when you go home.

Do you worry about whether you’ve made the correct diagnosis, arranged the appropriate investigations and explained the procedures in a clear and unambiguous way to your patient?

Is there a little ‘gremlin sitting on your shoulder nagging you about whether you’ve been a proficient  doctor and done everything you have to do for that patient?

Don’t worry you are not alone! There are hundreds of other doctors who experience a similar sense of anxiety when they leave work and start to go over in their minds what happened during the day. And it’s not only worrying about one patient: those feelings you may have of not doing as much as you could do may be multiplied many times.

As a result you may begin to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. So what could you do?

You could develop a simple ritual to do before you go home so that you tell yourself that you are washing all that ‘stuff’ away.

You can do this simply by washing your hands and telling yourself that all your worries and anxieties are going down the drain with the dirty water. I used to do this and found it very effective.

When you do this or something which is relevant to you, then you will be better able to relax and enjoy your hours away from the patients and return next day feeling fully refreshed and ready to face up to the new challenges the new day will bring you.

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Work Life Balance

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Susan Kersley

I have referred to Medicine being like a monster that eats into your life and the following blog post compares working as a physician as being like having a gorilla in your life! The advice this author gives is congruent with what I’ve written about making your out of work committments as important as those at work: saying no more often to extra work and yes more to things you do which nurture your own health and well-being. Click the link below to read the article.

Work Life Balance for Doctors means saying No with power and grace

www.thehappymd.com3/20/12

Work life balance for doctors means being able to say no to defend your larger life from the 800 pound gorilla that is your career.

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Do doctors need Coaching?

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Susan Kersley

Top athletes and singers have coaches: do you need one?

Interesting article in New York Times by Atul Gawande

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Doctor, improve your coaching skills

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Susan Kersley

Coaching is a way of enabling people to find their own solutions to their challenges and so it’s always useful  improve your coaching skills and use them as much as possible.
As a doctor you may need to be prescriptive at certain times, yet there are instances when  you could use coaching skills rather than just telling the patient what to do.  When someone is involved in the decision-making process then there is likely to be greater compliance with the part of the procedure or treatment about which they have less choice. Here is a reminder of ways to use coaching within the medical consulation:

Ask the patient for their suggestions:
Rather than telling the patient with  heart condition ‘ Lose weight and stop smoking,’ ask:
‘ what will you alter in your life in order to increase  your chances of recovery from this illness?’
When they (hopefully) say they need to lose weight you could ask how they intend to do that, or what help they would like from you or the practice in order to achieve their goals.’

Encourage them to set achievable and specific goals:
If, for example,  they have come up with their needed lifestyle change would involve weight loss find out how they intend t achieve this rather than plunging a diet sheet in their hand and saying: ‘just do what it says in the leaflet.‘
When the patient knows the goals they are working towards they are being forward thinking and outcome focussed and that in itself can be beneficial to someone who is feeling awful in the present time. It’s about encouraging them to think positively, take each step as it comes while keeping  a desired outcome in their mind do they can move as close to it as they can do.

If you have useful information to share in the discussion then always ask:
‘ May I tell you what happened when other patients tried to do that?’ or ‘Can I tell you the options you have to cure this illness or to relieve your symptoms?’

When the patient asks for more information about their illness, ask first what they already know about it or if they have known someone with something similar and what they might be worried about in relation to that illness.  In this way you can focus in on their worries and anxieties and discuss their options further, allaying fears and reassuring them about what they can do to help themselves in addition to what you can do too to help them.

You may find coaching can help you too! Click here to find out more.

 

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Life for doctors – don’t neglect the rest…

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Susan Kersley

If you’ve been through years of medical training, passed your exams and become a doctor, ask yourself whether you are a doctor for life and discover for yourself how much of you is now wrapped up in your identity as a doctor?
It’s important to remember that you are more than your profession, that you are more than your training and you deserve to have a life both in and out of Medicine.

Yet so many doctors forget this and as a result they neglect the important parts of themselves that existed before they became doctors and will be there when they have retired from Medicine.

If this applies to you too then consider this: your life as a doctor is more than your medical practice. You are allowed to have other interests apart from medicine and to have the time to spend with friends, family and community too.

What’s stopping you having your life as a doctor combined with a life away from that identity?
Perhaps there are overwhelming pressures on you to pass examinations, to do more research and to fulfill the expectations of your seniors. Maybe you put so much pressure onto your juniors in their pursuit of medical excellence and success that they daren’t question you nor realise that a doctor needs balance in his or her life.

Yet when you do create space for something away from your medical work you will find that you become more able to deal with the stresses of your day to day working life as a doctor.

Remind yourself that you became a doctor to diagnose and treat sick people, but you didn’t necessarily agree to give up every other aspect of your life. Recall what used to make your heart sing before you became overwhelmed with the doctor’s life. You may find that just remembering what it was that gave you an internal buzz that you realise you would love to re-visit that hobby or activity once more.

Don’t only think it, make the decision now, today, that something has to change and do one thing differently that will be the first step to changing your life to include things away from Medicine for a regular time set side each week just for you. The step you take could be simple and might be for example to book a ticket to go to a concert, see a film, join a class, bang a drum or go for a walk in the park.

Coaching helps. More information HERE too.

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A doctors life: what to be grateful for?

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Susan Kersley

I experienced a doctor’s life for many years, in spite of the heavy work load the frustration and the exhaustion which went along with it, I am grateful for certain aspects of the life of doctors.

I know now that it was truly a privilege to be able to communicate with people from all sorts of backgrounds, education, and in various emotional and physical states. It is special whereby as a doctor you are trusted with information not shared with anyone else. The patient trusts you with what they want to unburden and it is something which a doctor has to learn to accept and deal with.

Being a doctor goes beyond the conversation and the exchange of words: it also involves the physical examination, during which the patient may reveal more information that is helpful towards the diagnosis and treatment; and then there is the intellectual stimulation for the doctor of deciding what might be the reason for the symptoms, and initiating further investigations and treatment.

I’m grateful for:

  • Being able to listen to what people tell the doctor. Doctors must listen twice as much as speak and not jump to conclusions immediately. This was not always easy in medical consultation when limited by too little time per patient.
  • Knowing there is always the question: what do you want? Patients approach with a long list of symptoms and your heart goes into your boots but what they want is for you to sign something not turn their whole life around.
  • Noticing what isn’t being said People may use an excuse such as ‘I’ve got a cold’ as acceptable when they really want to say ‘I think I’ve got cancer.’
  • Being interested in people. People are all interesting and a doctor must try not to make judgements. Realising that people will only do what they are willing to do.
  • Patients will only do what they will do however strongly you tell them to change their lifestyle there will always be excuses if they don’t want to follow your advice.

So a doctor’s life taught me many things now used during coaching.

  • Listening rather than talking is important because by listening you can enable another person to discover their own solutions.
  •  ‘What do you want?’ is a vital question to get people to set their goal in life and what they want to achieve with coaching. People are fixated on what they don’t want.
  • During coaching, asking challenging questions helps to find out what isn’t being said.
  • Being interested in people is vital for a coach.
  • Coaching works when it enables people to decide for themselves what they will do rather than being prescriptive as a doctor must be, because even when you tell people to do this or that they decide for themselves.
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Doctor, remember to look after yourself too

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Susan Kersley

Every time you are busy seeing patients in your clinic or surgery you have to recall a wealth of information about them, their condition and about what you can do to help to diagnose and treat their illness. You may have developed your own way to do this so that you follow a routine.

For example after finding out their presenting symptoms asking them in a routine way about each of their body systems in turn so that you get an all over picture of what might be the cause of their illness and what you need to do next to find out more about it.
Yes, as a busy doctor you may be concentrating most of the time on your patients and forgetting to do what you must also do for your personal health and well being.

So you could devise a similar strategy for yourself as you use for your patients. Could you think of a mnemonic to remind you what needs to be checked each day or each week? For example if you said SCREEL to yourself every day and knew this stood for: Spirituality, Community, Relaxation, Exercise, Eating, and Learning would you remember these various aspects of self care which are important to maintain your health and well being as a doctor and as a human.

Spirituality: Connecting with nature, smelling the roses, watching an insect, saying a prayer, meditating, breathing, or whatever you do to connect with something beyond yourself.

Community: it is said that no man is an island, so make sure you connect with others away from work and with those who share your interests.

Relaxation: practice letting go of tension for a few minutes each day.

Exercise: your body needs to move and stretch, your heart needs to beat faster and your limbs need to transport you, so walking, running, doing yoga, dancing or moving in whatever way you can to keep your body working efficiently.

Eating: More fruit and vegetables, olive oil, nuts and protein, less junk, sugar, salt and e-numbers. Eat healthily and become healthier.

Learning: something new each day. Looking up words, reading books, thinking, discovering, learning and keeping your brain functioning well.

If you can think of a more relevant mnemonic for you do so and say it to yourself every day to remind yourself to spend just a few minutes addressing the various parts of your life in this way and as a result your self care will improve enormously.

Coaching enables you to be a doctor and have a life.

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Does Coaching Work For Doctors?

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Susan Kersley

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Coaching can enable doctors to  find their own way forward to a more balanced and happier life. This is what coaching can do for you if you are a doctor who is wondering about coaching and feeling hesitant about hiring a coach because you don’t really understand how a coach might be useful:

A coach can:

  • Motivate you to move forward and do what you want to do by encouraging you to take the first step and then some more, especially for those things you have been procrastinating about for some time.
  • Listen to your concerns about possible courses of action  and then by asking you challenging questions make you think afresh about what’s happening in your life and make the decision that’s best for you at this time.
  • Challenge your beliefs about the way things are and the ways they could be, by helping you question long-held ideas which no longer serve you.
  • Be on your side, supporting you in whatever course of action you decide to take  without an agenda of their own. For example,  colleagues might be shocked to hear you say you might leave the medical profession, or would like to spend more time with your friends and family, whereas the coach will help you  consider alternatives you might not have thought about before and then motivate you to do what you need to do.
  • Be in contact with you on a regular basis either on the telephone, email or Skype thus avoiding lengthy journeys for face to face meetings.
  • Enable you to clarify your goals so that you can make decisions and take action  in relation to challenges old or new, so that you make a difference to your life.
  • Teach you skills you can use if you are faced with similar challenges in the future. For instance you could  learn ways to communicate more effectively and  use what you learn when faced with a similar situation in the future.

Thus coaching can be useful for doctors like you. But only you can take that first step of making contact, discussing what you hope to achieve and then making a commitment to the process.

When you take that first step, which means you may feel you are stepping out of your comfort zone. However  when you do this you are embarking on your personal journey and  you will quickly find your very own prescription  for change.

Find out more about Coaching here.

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