January Greetings

Happy Gregorian New Year!  I hope that you are having or at least have had a restful break.  For my part I feel I barely crawled to the finish line and spent almost two weeks in near total professional shut down.  It’s made me wonder a bit why I seem to fall behind faster than I can catch up.

 

I used to be able to rely on an hour or two in the evening to myself after my children and wife had gone to sleep.  Now 8 and 11 and progressively more active with sports, friends, homework, etc, my children stay awake until 9 o’clock and I just don’t have that time anymore.  I never much liked taking my work home, but no longer having the buffer of a little quiet catch up time means I go to work most days feeling I haven’t finished the previous day’s work.  It’s not clinical work, I have trouble leaving the office until I’ve crossed every t and dotted every i,  it’s emails to respond to and articles to read, letters of reference and accommodation requests to write, and more.  I feel I’ve had to tune my filters ever higher because I just don’t have time to follow a link, read an article or have a conversation.

 

So tell me, wise, experienced and successful colleagues, how do you do it?  What wisdom can you share about achieving the personal-professional balance?  I know we’ve had annual meeting speakers on this topic, but feel a refresher is always needed, a continuous quality improvement project for the self.  Please send any thoughts you have to pdsmith@wesleyan.edu.  I will compile them and publish them in a future newsletter.

 

While I’m crowdsourcing, please let me know if you have suggestions for keynote speakers for our 2012 Annual Meeting in Portland (November 7-9). I have heard a few good ideas floated, but would be interested in expanding the pool of candidates.

 

Thank you and be well,

             Davis

Davis Smith, MD
President, NECHA 2011-2012
pdsmith@wesleyan.edu