Cast & Curious

Category: Self – Management

  • Work Life Balance: The Art of Saying “No”.

    Work Life Balance: The Art of Saying “No”.

    I’m always have been a workaholic but I’ve never been more rushed in my life than lately. This year is about to end yet I feel I ought to spend more time with family and friends. Days are compressed with most nights I’m awake doing some work or school stuff. There seem to be an endless barraged of things to do and I’m sacrificing personal for my work time. Of course I did try “hacks” to regain some sense of work-life balance, but I need to try harder. One big contributor to work life imbalance is the difficulty of saying no, so I thought of discussing work life balance, vis a vis saying “no”, in this week in #HealthXPh chat.

    T1. Why do you think many medical professionals find it difficult to say “no” ?

    Medical education and training honed us to be super humans many of us grew accustomed to the culture of extending work time to service humanity. In a work environment where the culture are straight duties, overtimes , giving “extra mile” in the service of humanity, saying no is like saying no to our profession. It is pretty much embarrassing, to say no in the medical profession. Sacrificing personal life seem to be the de facto culture in healthcare.

    T2. What’s your funniest saying “no” experience?

    I digress a bit. Yes, saying no in healthcare is often embarrassing, sometimes outright humorous. How often do you find yourself yearning to say no to a request yet uttering the word “yes” instead? There are time that I said yes to a request or an additional work, yet I almost instantly wished I said “no” and hated myself for it. Sometimes, I say “yes” because a “no” in healthcare, is often interpreted as the work ethic of “scums” .

    T3. Can you give tips or advice on saying no to achieve work life balance?

    Lately I calendared a regular exercise schedule and declared it non negotiable. I did prioritize myself- health, and openly declared it to everyone- patients, friends, family and even my bosses. It was difficult at first but by calendaring it early on, it became a routine “excuse” to say no to every request foregoing that exercise routine.

    There! I hope to read your thoughts and advices on work life balance and the art of saying “no” at the #HealthXPh chat this Saturday, Sept 15, 2023 9PM Manila time.

    These are our guide questions:

    [su_box title=”Work Life Balance: The Art of Saying No.”][su_list icon=”icon: hand-o-right”]

    • T1. Why do you think many medical professionals find it difficult to say “no”?
    • T2. What’s your funniest saying “no” experience?
    • T3. Can you give tips or advice on saying no to achieve work life balance? [/su_list] [/su_box]

      See you all at the #HealthXPh chat!

      ( Image by stockking on Freepik )

  • Gratitude: The Art of Savoring.

    I was stressed this past past few weeks I finally figured in a sports injury which was supposed to be a way to de-stress my body. The many roles I acquired during the pandemic finally took its toll after almost all required physical presence and face to face activities.

    Face to face tasks demand full attention and physical presence. You cannot attend two conferences at the same time anymore or listen to two lectures on two different gadgets. It seems that, the technology enabled “always present, always available” does not hold true anymore post pandemic. It came to a frustrating point that I decided to give up one of the “roles” I took on during the pandemic. The reason? I couldn’t handle that many roles anymore, not in this post pandemic, physical presence demanding work environment. I just want to go back see and treat patients, nothing else.

    One mentor I consulted said “instead of lingering on the many difficulties this pandemic brought us, try savoring on the ones you survived- the small wins. You may have downplayed many of these wins because of the negative experience we had in this pandemic!” “You journal right? I’m sure there is a lot you can write on the gratitude corner”. He was absolutely right!

    Gratitude! I can certainly count many but why is it easier to linger on a negative experience? Medical professionals are often taught to spot uncomfortable experiences like pain, decrease range of motion or difficulty breathing. When was the last time you asked a patient “Did you have a good night sleep?” Somehow we relegated that gratitude to that small corner of our planner. We lost that art of savoring the small wins.

    “Savoring” said Daniela Ramirez Duran, is “intentionally placing our attention on positive events and prolonging the positive feelings that arise”. Duran further enumerated the many benefits of increasing savoring ability. I first encountered the word “savoring” in Christopher Peterson’s Pursuing the Good Life: 100 Reflections on Positive Psychology. Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience by Fred B. Bryant and Joseph Veroff dug deeper into this “art” and gave practical tips applying it on our daily life. Dr. Hayley Lewis enumerated some of these tips in a sketch note below.

    I’m asking my fellow healthcare providers about the art of savoring in their daily life and how they practice gratitude in spite of the challenging grinds of the medical life. This will be the topic of our #HealthXPh chat this Saturday July 1, 2023 9PM Manila time. Here are the guide questions:

    [su_box title=”Art of Savoring among Healthcare Professionals”]
    [su_list icon=”icon: hand-o-right”]

    • T1. What are the benefits of savoring/ gratitude?
    • T2. How do you practice savoring/ gratitude?
    • T3. Do you recommend/ prescribe gratitude exercise? [/su_list] [/su_box]

      See you all this Saturday 9PM for the #HealthXPh Tweetchat!

      Image by partystock on Freepik

  • Doing Something Different in 2023.

    This topic was inspired by a chat topic at the healthcare leadership blog.

    January has been traditionally a new year resolutions month even for #Healthxph. In the last 2 pandemic new year, I only made one new year resolution and that is to survive the pandemic. Given my sorry batting average for achieving new year resolutions, this one has been so far the hardest and yet, here I am entering 2023, alive. I am grateful to a lot of people for that.

    This year, I want to do something different though. We’re slowly emerging into the new post pandemic normal and I realized some of my “pandemic” habits probably won’t be applicable in 2023. At work for example, I find “mixing” my multiple online activities with face to face tasks really tiring. Like 24 hours isn’t enough! So maybe there’s something I need to do differently this year. This will be the topic of the #Healthxph chat this Saturday Jan 14, 2023 9:00 PM Manila time.

    [su_box title=”Tweetchat: Doing Something Different in 2023 “]
    [su_list icon=”icon: hand-o-right”]

    • T1. What in your personal life, will you do differently in 2023?
    • T2. What in your career , will you do differently in 2023?
    • T3. What do you foresee will be your biggest challenge this 2023? [/su_list] [/su_box]

      Log in to your twitter account, follow the hashtag #Healthxph and contribute you thoughts to the guide questions above by appending #Healthxph in your tweets. See you all there!

      Image by Freepik

  • Wheels of Willpower: How To Get Better at (Advising) Self-Control

    [su_pullquote align=”right”]Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of
    passion.- Alexander Hamilton[/su_pullquote]

    During one badminton break, one friend asked my advice regarding his lingering knee pain while playing badminton. I advise him to stop playing badminton temporarily, seek medical consult for his knee injury and only resume playing when his doctor tells him so. On our next badminton game, I saw my knee pained friend still playing badminton and hasn’t consulted any doctor yet. I cautioned him again, but was really intrigued why he hasn’t followed my advice. His reply floored me. “We are almost of the same age. You also complain of occasional knee pain just like me. Yet you continue to play badminton. I guess this knee pain will just go away!”

    As someone who has tried (and failed) some of my own advices, I ask friends and colleagues how my “hardheadedness” affect their chances of “following” my advice. It seems for many of us health workers, advising self control seem easy yet we all had our share of self control struggles, and these have implications of our advising particularly with health issues.

    Of course there are many behavioral and social drivers when it comes to influencing health outcomes. Healthcare recommendations is just one of these, albeit an important one. We may not recognize this but when healthcare worker “self control” is out of control, the implications to our patients are as just as mind boggling. This is the topic of our #HealthXPh chat this Saturday October 15, 2022 9:00 PM Manila time.

    • T1. As a healthcare professional, have you advised a patient on a medical concern yet you struggle following the very same advise?

    When we talk of self control, the word “will power” comes to mind. Although there are many behavioral and social drivers to self control, we usually equate self control with “mind over body”, mind over flesh or simply the “will” to do things- will power. Many studies have already pointed the uncomforting truth that will power is often beyond our own “will”. Yet, we quixotically believe we have will power on so many things.

    • T2. Can you recommend a specific strategy to reinforce self control when advising patients on health concerns?

    One thing that comes to mind of course is avoiding too many self control habits at once or at the same time. There were studies now that prove that willpower is finite and our cognitive capacity is severely affected when its loaded all at the same time.

    • T3. What other behavioral, social strategies do you advise in addition to self control when influencing a health outcome in a patient?

    In the medical community our mantra for advising is “walk the talk”. This is easier said than done and I’m very interested in knowing how to improve our self control advises particularly when we try to improve our patients achieving a better health outcome! See you all in the #HealthXPh chat!

    Image by stockking on Freepik

  • Rebuilding social connections, learning and finding purpose in the new, “post pandemic normal”.

    Rebuilding social connections, learning and finding purpose in the new, “post pandemic normal”.

    Two days ago we operated a fully vaccinated, asymptomatic RT-PCR + patient for a totally unrelated injury. Two years ago, treating a SARS COV 2 (+) patient is too risky and dangerous. Treatment is necessarily delayed until patient is deemed non infective. That could take weeks or even a month if the patient luckily survives COVID. Now, with vaccination, precautionary protocols and PPEs, we can proceed with the treatment with little delay. And I felt rather dull, apprehensive and weird. After struggling to adapt to this pandemic, I am once again witnessing another disruption. One that more is desirable but not necessarily easier, than its predecessor- adapting to the new, post pandemic normal.

    We all bear witness to our struggles in the new pandemic normal. We all prosletized that the “new pandemic normal” of COVID 19 restrictions will be the “new normal”. We painstakingly used and adapted to digital and electronic communications to carry us through this pandemic. When vaccines and safety protocols came minimizing the risks of COVID among us, we’re now looking at a face to face interactions soon. And there’s anything but the “old normal” in what I saw. A blended lecture, a new weird looking OR with all spacesuits, or dining with friends al fresco (but wet by the heavy rains), I felt weird. And now, I have this conundrum (albeit a lot desirable than its pandemic predecessor) on how to adapt to this emerging, post pandemic normal.

    COVID-19 severely disrupted the way we connect socially. Almost all of our social connections were built and maintained digitally during the pandemic. “I lost a few good people this pandemic and all I can say is RIP over the internet” said Dr. M. “That’s too damn shameful for my standards”! Now that we are emerging from this pandemic, I’m still apprehensive about physically, socially mingling even with my family. The mask-less, physical hugging I’m used too is a bit awkward now. I still avoid family dinners for fear of spreading the virus!

    T1. How will you rebuild social connections in the new post pandemic normal?

    As a distance education student, I am very much comfortable teaching and learning “from a distance” . Yet, I miss giving out face to face talks and the “hands on” teaching at the clinics. At a recent training workshop, I had this awkward dilemma – I don’t know how to talk to a camera and a face to face audience at the same time. I ended up talking to myself.

    T2. How will you continue teaching and learning in the new post pandemic normal?

    “I’m thinking about retiring early or maybe another less risky career” said one colleague. “I lost my purpose right there when I was gasping for air at the COVID ICU” he lamented. I can empathize with him. My mom died not of COVID but her healthcare needs was severely limited by this pandemic. And I not once blamed my inability to provide all her needs even if I am busy taking care of others. That, tested my career purpose. Finding your purpose in the new post pandemic normal would be difficult for many of us.

    T3. How will find or continue your purpose in the new post pandemic normal?

    Experiencing how we lived through this pandemic and hopefully soon, a post pandemic world, I had so many questions and realizations. In all these, adaptation has been our greatest ally in rebuilding in the post pandemic normal. The concept is easy to understand but is much harder to implement. This will be the topic of the #HealthXPh tweetchat this March 12, 2022, 9PM Manila time. Join us and share your thoughts!

    Image by pressfoto on Freepik