It’s 2014, the New Year, and many U.S. and Caribbean medical school students and residents are making resolutions. The UMHS Pulse offers the following compendium of tips from various sources to help you reach your goals.
Stop Making Resolutions & Just Pick a Theme: U.S. News and World Report spoke to Melissa Johnson, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, about trying a “theme” for 2014 like “activity,” “movement” or “fitness” instead of making the usual resolutions to lose weight and go to the gym more often.
“The theme should be a word that resonates with you and embodies something that has been missing from your daily life," Ms. Johnson says. "Instead of defining specific behaviors that you want to do, you simply keep your theme in mind and allow your days to unfold from there."
Although osteopathic medical school students have different training than in allopathic schools such as UMHS, there are similarities. The website TheDo has some great resolutions from which we believe all med students can benefit. We think the following two apply the most to everyone.
Improve Work/Life Balance: This is hard for both med students and new doctors. Matthew Kelly, author of Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction, advises to “consider where the gaps are between the life you have and the life you want, and give yourself a timeline to close the gaps.”
How should you close the gaps? Mr. Kelly says to schedule white space on your calendar. “Everyone needs white space on their calendar to thrive,” he writes. “The busier you are, the harder it is to find that white space organically. You need to schedule white space. Time that is specifically scheduled for whatever you feel like doing.”
Mr. Kelly recommends spending 20 minutes on Sundays to plan the week ahead, and to schedule in personal and family time, if possible.
Be the Best Resident You Can Be: We all know that 80-hour weeks and dealing with new knowledge are a reality for many residents, so it’s easy to become stressed out and forget about working out and getting enough rest.
Dr. Jennifer Kendall of Maplewood, MN says it helps to schedule time to work out three times a week at the gym.
Beyond that, cultivating a better personal relationship with your attending physician is crucial.
“It’s so important for networking and for future jobs,” she says. “You never know when your attending is going to hear about a job that would be perfect for you. If they know you on a more personal level, they may bring this job to your attention or even recommend you for the job.”
She says residents should ask attendings for feedback. “Attendings aren’t always good about offering up feedback, but if a resident opens the door, attendings are very willing to sit down and talk,” she says. “And some of that feedback you get, if you open that door, will be invaluable to making you a better physician and adding to your skills.”
Pre-Read Before Class Every Day: This is self-explanatory. Emily of the Kaplan Med School Pulse says, “I always tell my MCAT classes that pre-reading before class is an essential component for success. It’s probably time I started taking my own advice and actually read the material before I sit through the lecture.”
(Top photo) 2014 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS: Creating a theme & being a better resident are among suggestions. Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
About UMHS:
Built in the tradition of the best US universities, the University of Medicine and Health Sciencesfocuses on individual student attention, maintaining small class sizes and recruiting high-quality faculty. We call this unique approach, “personalized medical education,” and it’s what has led to our unprecedented 96% student retention rate, and outstanding residency placements across the US and Canada.
Scott is Director of Digital Content & Alumni Communications Liaison at UMHS and editor of the UMHS Endeavour blog. When he's not writing about UMHS students, faculty, events, public health, alumni and UMHS research, he writes and edits Broadway theater reviews for a website he publishes in New York City, StageZine.com.
