Self-Care Act of the Day

February 6, 2019

I have dedicated a little corner of my daily Hobonichi planning page to this little item. Thus far, my self-care acts have included things as varied as:

  • staying all day at work on a Sunday to catch up while on call (I recognize this is not traditional self-care, but it made me feel better than any massage or pedi!)
  • spending some time reading during lunchtime
  • going to bed at 7:45 (last night). YES, 7:45. I slept until 5:30. (This was after a week of call in which I accumulated some significant sleep deprivation, so I felt entitled)

My call week was heart-wrenching. I did more multidisciplinary high-acuity medicine than I’ve done for a long time, which actually felt really gratifying, but it also made me so incredibly sad. I don’t know how oncologists do what they do; I’d probably have to be medicated.

ANYWAY. It was odd to shift gears from that to a day off yesterday, but such is life. I took Cameron to a kindergarten intro program called “Hatchlings”, which was so cute. He was shy and clingy at first but had a great time. I don’t get a lot of solo time with C (he gets lumped with A or G, depending on what we have going on) but I’d like to give him more. I can tell he loves it.

They got to go through the lunch line (as “practice”) and try a real school lunch! He was excited but I was not thrilled with the contents — chicken nuggets, chocolate milk made with skim + a bunch of additives, a random bag of juice (?), a tiny cup of rice with a few random carrots & peas thrown in, and cookies. I think we will keep packing (at least most days) for the foreseeable future . . .

Since I was off, I also fit in a run, a parent-teacher conference, made 2 more dr’s appointments (I now have OBGYN, PCP, dentist, eye dr, and derm set up for myself after not doing any of these things since Genevieve was born . . .), and wrote out my February goals list (I’ll save that for tomorrow’s post). I also got to pick A up from school (I ran there!) and hang out at the playground with all 3. There is plenty I DIDN’T do, but that seems like enough.


Sometimes I am wondering if my days off are worth it, and I have even been contemplating a work increase back to 90%*, but yesterday did feel like it was.

*Spending all day at work on a Sunday and having multiple late nights has me wondering how “80%” my 80% is lately, so that is one reason why I was questioning things.

2 Comments

  • Reply Holly March 10, 2019 at 7:05 pm

    Not sure how feasible this would be at your practice, but would it be possible to go back to 100% time, pay, and call but leave the fifth day open/free from regular patient appointments for your residency responsibilities + overflow/rescheduled patients + your own flexibility? Leaving you the option to work half-day remotely or take time as need be? It’s insane to be working all day Sundays and going in frequently on your day off for meetings but only get 80% pay! I don’t agree with Laura on much, but I think she’s on the nose regarding the 80% pay/100% hours phenomenon! I realize that may not be the “traditional” way to do a physician schedule, but it’s about time the medical field caught up with the rest of the white collar world!

    I also wonder how much PTO you are given at the practice? Now that you don’t have a maternity leave to save for again, I almost wonder if you could start incorporating one day off a month for yourself and still have plenty for vacations etc?

    Also…can you turn anonymous commenting on in Disqus? Not because I feel the need to troll behind an anon account, but I’ve found Disqus log-ins to be glitchy on other sites and anon commenting gets around that.

  • Reply Parent Lightly Beth Cubbage March 10, 2019 at 7:05 pm

    It does seem like you’re working 100% (or more?), but at the same time…it might be worth that 20% to you to buy a weekday to work on your outside projects/around the house stuff. It seems to me like if you leave podcasting/blogging/etc for the weekend it might just not get done.

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