Stephanie Wellington is a physician and can be reached at Nurturing MDs.
Do you begin each day with a clean slate? What if you could?
How different would the new day be if you weren’t picking up where you left off—with the stuck energy, the stale energy, the energy of being drained at the end of the shift, at the end of the day?
What if, as we walked out of the hospital, office, or clinic, that energy was left behind, and instead, we …
Can you remain steady in the midst of chaos—whether in the emergency room, on the unit, or in the clinic? There are times in medicine when chaos ensues. Maybe it’s a trauma rushing into the ER. Or a refractory asthmatic coming into the office who rapidly deteriorates, requiring immediate intervention. Maybe it’s a newborn who is floppy and cyanotic after birth.
Regardless of the clinical setting, there are times when the …
This season, I’m living even more fully into who I am behind the scrubs and stethoscope. I’m deepening my understanding of whether I’m operating in my highest energy versus operating from stress and fear.
When my mother passed away months ago, I was thrust into unbelievable grief. I looked to family and friends who had lost a parent and wondered how they got through it. I wanted the pain to stop. …
More than a decade ago I hired my first coach, and life was never the same. During my time with the life coach, I experienced first-hand the value of an end-of-year process that goes deeper than setting a New Year’s resolution.
Years have passed. As a busy physician, I’ve told myself that I don’t have the time for a deep dive reflection of my life and career. I have patients to …
We all do it at one time or another.
Maybe the office or clinic is closed, but you’re on call, waiting for the phone to ring and take your attention away from family, friends, and festivities.
Is it a source of stress, or have you learned to go with the flow?
There are many things that trigger us in medicine and in life.
In the first few years as an attending physician, holidays were …
The conversation of physician wellness includes self-care and self-care practices.
As a practicing physician, I adopted many self-care practices as the vehicle to restore peace and connect to the flow of life.
One practice has taken center stage for me, creating the pattern interrupt needed to get back in the flow of life when faced with stress and overwhelm.
My morning routine, whether I am waking up at home or in the hospital …
Get off the field.
Go back to the dugout and rally your team.
Create your rules of engagement.
The structure and hierarchy of medicine teach doctors to compete with one another. From the beginning, we’re told there are a finite number of acceptance letters sent to aspiring physicians. In medical school, we compete for one of a limited number of slots in highly selective and competitive training programs. And as attendings, we have …
There are times in medicine when the focus is on how hard it is to be a doctor in these uncertain times. We focus on patient care demands, reimbursement challenges and financial instability, and the general lack of feeling rewarded. And that can keep physicians stuck in a cycle of comparing what’s possible with the present circumstances.
Hey, I get it. I’ve been there. I’ve looked at senior attending physicians and …
When was the last time you paused for a moment to feel your energy? I mean, really get in touch with the energy you hold inside your being?
Could it be as physicians, we have gotten so used to that stressful feeling or that drained feeling at the end of the day that we’ve forgotten how to feel at ease and be in a state of joy as we take care …
Like anyone else, the holiday season can be the source of great joy. And it can add to the stress and overwhelm that physicians already experience. The practicing physician may find herself torn between responsibilities in the clinical setting and the preparations needed to make a memorable holiday experience for family and friends.
It starts with rushing from work to make it to the store before closing. It’s planning, decorating, baking, …
Lately, I ask myself, “Where is my focus?”
Is it on what’s in my inbox, where I receive daily emails about COVID-19, the vaccine, what’s working, and what’s not?
Is it on the news, the trial, the verdict, police shootings, and the state of unrest in our country?
And if my focus is on what’s outside of me, then who is focused on me?
Focusing on me is my job. It’s the most important …
Physicians know what success looks like on paper. We spend a large part of our journey in medicine taking action to be competitive for medical school, the top-ranking residency training program, and the prestigious attending position.
Then the reality of a medical career sets in.
The focus on patient volume to generate revenue, the precise documentation needed to justify coding, and the micromanagement of the team to ensure patient satisfaction is a …
It’s easy to get distracted by the demands of the journey in medicine. Today physicians now see patients in person and virtually. Technology allows docs to bring work home and complete documentation remotely, which can blur the lines between work and home life.
It’s completely natural that physicians experience more stress and less success, as the demands seem never-ending.
Success is right where you are in this very moment. But success becomes …
Abundance is defined as “the state or condition of having a copious quantity of something” or “plentifulness of the good things of life: prosperity.”
The massive havoc of the pandemic causes us to shrink in the face of human frailty, morbidity, and mortality rather than feel expansive and abundant. Even the vaccine efforts are enveloped in distrust and scarcity.
As I sit to write this article, I dance between medicine’s possibilities and …
When my medical career was in its infancy, providing for my family after divorce meant moonlighting in addition to working full-time hours. Although it was my decision, I was torn between my children and my work. Time in the hospital meant missing out on watching them grow, change, and develop their own little personalities.
Although it was 21 years ago, I still remember it like it was yesterday, where I was …
Every physician has had the experience. The moment you ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?”
It could be when you look into the waiting room where there are more patients to be seen and know if you take a break, it will set you back even further.
It could be on the final stretch of the 24-hour shift that redefined the meaning of the word “nonstop.”
It could be the third time …
My energy has been bottled up. It’s not just over the past few weeks during this pandemic. My energy has been bottled up and backlogged in some areas of my life for decades.
The recent turn of life events has just made it even more glaring and evident to me. It forced me and demanded me to do something about it.
The traffic jam of my energy manifested itself in procrastination and …
The world is impacted by coronavirus. The same advancements in civilization that allow us to travel and experience new cultures are the very thing that has blurred our borders and made everyone susceptible to the virus. We are observers and participants at the same time.
Schools are closed and shifting to long-distance learning models. Conferences are canceled. Sporting events are shutting the stadiums to fans. We are social beings now being …
If you follow me for any time, you know that I’m about physicians owning your value, recognizing your strength, and balancing your life. I was doing that before it became popular to talk about.
While it has a catchy ring to it, what you don’t know is that it was not always that way for me. And no one knew. It was one of the ways that I struggled in medicine.
There …
Maybe you think it’s too early to consider the next stage in your career.
Medical school graduation is just months away. Newly graduated doctors will be making their way to their first rotations in July. Senior residents and senior fellows are thinking and dreaming about their next position as a new attending.
This got me to thinking.
Are you truly considering and factoring in your well-being as you look for the next position …
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
