This week I attended a woman physician mini coaching program, at 5:30 pm each day. "After work".
I did not show up until Wednesday.
Our lead physician is younger than me. Nearly all were, except one. She and I have exchanged email and phone numbers. She has served as the head of AMWA, the American Medical Woman's Association. The group was very ethnically diverse. Specialty diverse too, with Family Practice, a Bariatric Surgeon, a Developmental Pediatrician who spends two hours in any initial visit of a complicated child, and an Internal Medicine physician.
The theme is boundaries. Each day our physician coach talks about a topic and asks us to set an intention, a goal, a plan, for that day.
By the last one I feel gloomy and tired. Because they are looking for control and there is no control. I could never have guessed that I would be alive, my sister and parents would be dead, that my maternal family would consider me a villain, that I would have written here, that I would have to battle to get medical care and to return to work in 2014. None of it. The story sounds insane to me when I tell it to myself. And how many of us have stories that we have trouble believing? Many thanks to the noders publishing those stories, here or as books. And thanks to my mentor poet for listening to me grump for years. Thanks to the star editor who has helped me and smoothed my porcupine quills. And to my dragon sister for forcing me to use the internet and to come here.
I don't think anyone will have to worry about the country doctors. They are quitting. As the rich hurry to buy land in attractive small towns like mine, and price the locals out, the doctors plan their own flights. Probably to medium size cities. One in five plan to quit/retire/leave within a year. Texas is offering half a million yearly to Family Practice. Other places offer 350 or 400K. They will, of course, work the doctor into the ground.
The younger doctors in the group all want to outsource the things they don't like to do. Prepare food, house clean, yard work. Don't do that, I want to say. Cut your schedule, live on less, save half, buy disability insurance out of your own pocket and carry it along.
But I do not say that, because it is not my show. Yesterday, the last day, our moderator plugs her longer program, twelve weeks with group and solo meetings, we could get it for only $4000 instead of $5000. She will lower cost for anyone financially pressed. I do not bite.
To the younger doctors I want to say, if you have enough money to live on, time is more important. Time with your children and family. And your children need to learn all the skills. How to clean a bathroom, change a tire, put gasoline in the car, vacuum, do laundry, cook, stuff a turkey. And doing any one of those things with a child will take twice as long as if you did it alone. But that time is with your child. They will learn the normal house things and how to do all the basic life skills. Talk about where the house money goes: car insurance, health insurance, food, mortgage, what do apartments cost in your area, what does college cost?
And I want to say, don't worry. Don't worry about balance because the moment you are balanced, something will change. Life will throw things at you that you cannot even imagine.
Blessings.