life Work

DITL #3/7: Friday (Clinical Day)

April 27, 2024

Is it weird to read about a Friday when it’s already Saturday? Ahh well! I am really glad I have been writing things down because my memory for time use is pretty terrible. Maybe that’s why I find time tracking generally hard – once I forget to check in it’s just . . . gone. Or at least hard to reconstruct accurately!

Thankfully, I continued to write things down yesterday AND have a few pix on my phone (though for yesterday those are mostly FOOD, oops!), so here we go!

4:40 Up, coffee/collagen/vitamins/grahams/water, read ~15 pages, quick journal, NYT games, Headspace

5:45 Head out to run. ANOTHER sub-70-degree morning!? I am thrilled and amazed that our ~7-8 month summer season hasn’t started yet. I feel pretty energetic on this one and spend most of it listening to Ali on the Run’s Boston recap.

there was a car incident (on Ali’s podcast) involving a turkey which sounded incredibly scary!

7:00 Home, get breakfast stuff started (then Josh takes over), shower, dress — scrubs again but navy blue this time . . .

7:25 Start getting everyone ready for launch!

7:35 Leave on the earlier side for once! (Note: Josh was able to run in the morning after I left! Always nice when we can both get it in during the morning.)

7:50 Arrive at school; walk kids to their classes. Wave to the goats . . . (there is a small farm on the school grounds)

8:00 Drive to work + pick up Starbucks again — banana bread for breakfast with my oat milk cappuccino.

I switch to pumpkin bread in the fall but it’s still banana bread season

8:30 Patients! I start with a telehealth (just 1) and then move onto regular patients. In between visits I answer MyChart messages, review labs and send messages with results, and make patient phone calls.

11:45 DONE!! I finish up the prior day’s DITL post (I had started it the night before knowing these are a bit time consuming!) and hit publish. Then I browse blogs for a few minutes (I use Feedly for this).

12:15 Meet my friend Amy (adult endo) for lunch in the hospital physician cafeteria. We sit with some peds cardiologists and a peds neuro. I eat lasagna, a meatball, and roasted vegetables. (Note: I always make sure to eat plenty of carbs on Friday because of Saturday’s long run. NOT that I’m low carb on other days either, but pre-long-run day I keep this particularly in mind.)

1:00 Duolingo then chart prep for afternoon patents (first one is running late)

1:15 Afternoon patients + additional calls. Clear out work email. I take one break to eat the snack of champions below:

sorry this really turned into a food blog didn’t it!?

4:50 Finished with patients and notes, and inbox is empty! Chat a few minutes with our division chief (her office is next door to mine)

5:10 Drive home. I call my parents on the way home just to chat. We discuss plans for us to visit in July.

5:35 Arrive home. Josh is supposed to have left with C to drive to a weekend soccer tournament in Naples (90 minutes away) but they are still here because his entire uniform is just GONE. GONE!! We (MM, Josh, me) look everywhere but no dice.

6:00 Josh leaves with C for Naples; the plan is to borrow someone’s uniform from last year. I eat dinner with A & G. We each eat various leftovers. I choose pizza from our freezer because it’s a good pre-long-run food for me. (This was really good pizza actually leftover from Anthony’s Coal Fired, one was eggplant and one plain.)

I always over-order pizza and put a bunch in the freezer. I NEVER regret this act!

6:30 After cleaning up I watch Dance Moms (season 6) with A (we are lying on the couch watching her iPad); G watches Tinkerbell on Disney+ on our TV.

7:15 Girls want to go to Menchie’s (frozen yogurt) so we head out. G makes a crazy concoction with gummy sharks and blue frozen yogurt; A goes with chocolate and peanut butter. I almost get some but remember that I don’t actually LIKE Menchie’s and that we had ice cream at home.

concoctions

8:20 Arrive home; I have some Trader Joe’s ice cream (coffee + mint chip flavors, they didn’t really go together BUT I really wanted both, lol). A and I watch another Dance Moms ep while G finishes her movie. Not going to lie, Dance Moms is pretty entertaining.

9:00 Tinkerbell is over, and I start G’s bed routine. We finish Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer and she goes to bed.

9:30 Skincare (with A), read for about 1 minute

9:45 SLEEEEEEEEP


Reading: ~18 pages

Screen time: 99 minutes

Sleep: just under 7 hours, I really hope I can nap today!!!!

15 Comments

  • Reply Kat R April 27, 2024 at 10:58 am

    Ok this made me feel so much better because I definitely prefer watching TV with my older daughter (9). My 6yo is still into cartoons which is totally age appropriate but I can only take so much. I really try to avoid splitting tv watching on the weekends (to try to have more family time) but your scenario sounds great! And everyone wins right??

    • Reply Sarah Hart-Unger April 27, 2024 at 11:17 am

      Yeah I LOVE the idea of us all watching things together but A is 12 and in middle school and G is 6 and in K!! There are definitely some things they both enjoy (usually things that skew older but G tolerates, like Legally Blonde . . .) but many times I just let them both watch what they want. (C enjoys sports, action movies, sci fi. He WILL watch some things that the other two like but the overlap is again somewhat limited. It is not totally uncommon to have 3 things streaming at once. I have made peace with this being not the picture perfect movie night that others describe. And I really am entertained by Dance Moms. Ha!

  • Reply Anna April 27, 2024 at 11:12 am

    These posts are so helpful/interesting – thank you Sarah! Following up from your post yesterday, I wondered which are your favourite blogs to read at the moment? Wishing you a great weekend 🙂

  • Reply Alyssa April 27, 2024 at 1:15 pm

    I really love seeing these posts! DITL’s always give me ideas for how to tweak my own schedule/flow of things. Questions for you if you don’t mind (context is I’m primary care in Canada and always seem to be charting and clearing my inbox in the evening). How many patients do you see in a 3h block (say 8:30-11:45)? How do you have time to chart/inbox/etc in between them? Would also be happy to hear from other MD’s if anyone has tips for taming the ever-full inbox and happens to come across this comment!

    • Reply Sarah Hart-Unger April 27, 2024 at 1:26 pm

      Peds endo is definitely a lower volume specialty (also a low paid one , I guess they go hand in hand). 7 per half day is typical for us !! I am a bit self conscious about this since I know many specialties or primary care doctors see like 3x that!!

    • Reply Sarah Hart-Unger April 27, 2024 at 1:27 pm

      A few more details: I am often in a room for a solid 25 min, esp a new one. Follow ups can be faster. I pre chart (find it saves time and has me very prepared when going into each room) and do all orders plus the instructions/ plan in the room. I also try really to use electronic messaging not the phone when appropriate bc it is much faster. Would be fun to crowdsource others’ hacks.

  • Reply jennystancampiano April 27, 2024 at 2:54 pm

    Oh, we don’t mind the food pics! Why is it so interesting to see what other people eat? I really need to start freezing leftover pizza- I just threw out a piece that had gotten a little too old in the fridge (noooooo!)
    I like how your Friday seems mildly celebratory (Starbucks banana bread for breakfast, after-dinner screen time, a trip to Menchie’s.) You’ll have to let us know if the missing soccer uniform turns up (where could it be???)
    You know I’m looking forward to the next post with your long run! Yes, the early morning weather has been incredible. This morning was windy, at least where we are. It wasn’t a running morning for me though.

  • Reply Jenna April 27, 2024 at 3:44 pm

    Please do a follow up when you find the soccer uniform! It’s so maddening when that happens (has definitely happened more than once in this house!)

    Also, yes, I like the food logging because I always hear things like “eat more carbs/eat more food” when training, but it’s interesting to see what that means to different people.

  • Reply JGold April 27, 2024 at 5:38 pm

    Would you be willing to share what brand of collagen you use and if you have found results from it? 49-year-old runner here wondering if this might help prevent stiffness, etc.

    • Reply Sarah Hart-Unger April 27, 2024 at 6:09 pm

      I use the vital proteins – the one in the blue cannister! I do 10g in my coffee 🙂

  • Reply coco April 27, 2024 at 10:37 pm

    Love the evening frozen yogurt outing! carb loading through ice cream sounds divine.
    I rarely watch a show with the girls which would have been nice. Prefer reading than watching lately, unless I have to run on the TM, then Netflix is my friend.

  • Reply AM April 28, 2024 at 7:54 am

    Not sure why, but I do love a DITL post 🙂

  • Reply Amanda April 28, 2024 at 8:40 am

    I love these DITL posts so much! Thanks for sharing Sarah!

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