Double Negatives=A Positive Attitude

What have I not been up to this month?! The correct answer is not much. Now I've confused myself with multiple negatives. Let's just say I've been busy. Here's what went down the past 2 weeks...

1. I was fired by a patient for the first time. Well, not really fired. More like not rehired. A patient of mine was readmitted 2 days after I had discharged her (no small feat!) and her mom was requesting "a different experience" aka a different attending. It stung but I tried to not take it personally. Since I believe that the universe sends me signs if I only pay attention (listening on the 3rd level as my life coach put it), I wasn't entirely surprised when the topic of my first year medical student small group session was "Bias In Healthcare". We discussed all the different types of bias healthcare providers carry into their patient interactions and how that affects the doctor-patient relationship. I used this to reflect on my "firing" experience and realized that yes, I did harbor a bias towards a difficult and dramatic patient and this undoubtedly affected my interactions with this patient and her mother, however subtle that effect might be. Touche, universe.

2. I was touched by the death of a patient. Hearing about the death of a patient you have cared for stirs up so many emotions...shock, sadness, disbelief, fear, and an incredible compassion for the family. I felt all of these feelings in a span of about 2 minutes. And I continued to cycle through them all day and the rest of that week. I will carry her face and her story in my heart for a very long time. Such is being a pediatrician.

3. I spent the first of five weekends as a participant in a Primary Care Faculty Development Fellowship. A small group of us attend a series of sessions covering everything from teaching methods, using technology in medical education, evidence based medicine, and a potpourri of similar topics. At the end of the fellowship in May, we will be expected to have completed a research project with the intention of presenting at a national meeting. My inner geek rejoices at the opportunity to pretend I'm back in school.

4. Speaking of research projects, I've started my first clinical research project and just today realized that it might actually go somewhere. We are still in the preliminary analysis, but if it pans out, this will be the first project that I personally have conceptualized and followed through to completion and hopefully to publication. I'm trying not to get too excited but this feels big. Really big.

5. I had my first session with my life coach today. Fascinating is all I can say at the moment as I'm still processing. It's like therapy (without all the crying and dwelling on the past) meets mentorship (without the person having anything to do with my career) meets tough-love friend (everyone needs one of those but hardly anyone has one) meets personal cheerleader (but not super annoyingly cheery) meets guru (without the spiritual heaviness). More on this later.

6. My mom is coming to visit tomorrow for the first time since I've lived here. This entails frantic house cleaning and laundry and telling the dogs over and over again that "grandma is coming and bringing you presents!" They're very excited. So am I!

7. Last but not least, I spent an entire morning waiting for my new dishwasher to be delivered, watching it being installed, and then standing there in barely concealed disgust as the delivery person could not get it to work. I look forward to spending tomorrow morning waiting for the dishwasher repairman to fix my brand new dishwasher. But enough about that.

Day Ten: Renew, Restart, and Revitalize to Continue the Journey

Here we are, day ten of our journey to a happier, more successful career and life. How do you feel? Happier? More successful? The good news is that if you've been doing the emotional work over the last ten days you should feel like you're at least on your way to feeling more fulfilled. The less good news is that your work is not done. Life is a continually changing organism and so are you. When you wake up tomorrow you might have a different perspective than you do today. In fact, I hope you do. I hope that you see each day as fundamentally different from the last and in turn, you are a different person because of your experiences of the day before. If you strive to learn and grow everyday, you will never be the same person you were yesterday. It is an amazing gift to reinvent yourself and see the world as an endless sea of opportunities again and again and again. We begin to die the moment we are born. It is up to you what you want to see when you look back on your life and your accomplishments. Each day ask yourself "What is worth doing? What is within my reach?".

When we talk again (I need a few days off!) I will tell you about a conscious decision I've made to better my life. Until then, enjoy your journey. Maybe over a glass of wine and a sunset.

Day Nine: Network Your Way To Professional Success

First let me say that this is my 100th blog post. Second, I had the best frozen custard of my life today in St Louis. And now on to networking.

When I think of networking I think of handing out business cards and going to lame networking events where one is forced to "work the room" speed dating style. Neither of these appeals to me and my introvert personality. However, in reading more about networking, I realized there is a much broader definition of the term and that I could network and still be true to myself. Networking is defined as "meeting an extended group of people to form mutually beneficial relationships that provide assistance and support over time." If you expand the term meeting to include social networking sites and interpret a group of people to mean many people but one at a time, it doesn't sound quite so intimidating. We network every single day without even realizing it. Now is your time to use those opportunities to your benefit.

Looking back, I realize that I found my last two jobs through networking. When I was finishing fellowship and still without a job, I got a page one afternoon from the pediatric residency program director. She asked me if I was still looking for a job and of course I told her yes. She mentioned that the head of the neonatology division had called her because a position opened up and he asked her if she knew of any good candidates. She immediately thought of me. Prior to this, I had only spoken to her one other time about something unrelated so was flattered that she even remembered me. She gave me his phone number, I called and told him she sent me, I interviewed, and he offered me the job on the spot. You never know when a brief interaction with someone of status will lead to an opportunity. Even if you never think you will interact with that person again, put your best foot forward. Always. When looking for my next job, I remembered that a resident I had worked with in Chicago was currently living in Madison and working as a hospitalist. I had run into her a few months before at the Pediatric Hospital Medicine conference and mentioned that I would be looking for a job soon. She raved about her position and her coworkers but I didn't really think much of it because I had my heart set on leaving the Midwest. Six months later I thought about her and decided to inquire about a position in Madison just in case I didn't find a job I wanted in a warmer climate. Much to my husband's dismay, the job turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. She put in a good word for me and here I am, one year and a snowblower later.

My take on the concept of networking is this: grab every opportunity, accept every invitation you can, sit on panels and committees, volunteer for tasks nobody else has the time for, explore possibilities even briefly, teach classes, write blogs, and sell yourself. That is the essence of networking and that is how you are ultimately going to own your success.

Day Eight: Practice Personal Courage to Participate In and Resolve Conflicts

Oooohhhh, this one's a biggie. And one I would have to admit I'm not very good at. Conflict is one of those things that is so easy to create yet so hard to destroy. When I'm faced with conflict of any kind, I get hot and flushed and my heart starts racing. I also tend to cry. I know, not a good situation. There's no crying in academia.

However, how do you get anything done without ruffling a few feathers? At least that's what I tell myself. Here's my recent experience with conflict. I was put in the position of doing a child abuse evaluation for which I felt woefully unprepared and completely overwhelmed. I've had no specific training in forensic pediatrics and although I can handle straightforward suspicions of abuse, I didn't feel equipped to deal with a complex trauma patient. Yet, there I was on a Saturday night, listed as the person on call for child abuse. After handling the consult, I wrote an honest, professional email detailing the issues I found and ways to improve them. Little did I know that the email would activate a chain of events leading to the removal of our hospitalist division from the child abuse call pool. This was a victory for our group, many of whom felt uncomfortable with our presence in the call pool without any training. However, when one group pulls out of call, another group has to pick up the calls. The woman who is now handling all the calls that we previously handled stopped by my office to "chat" after the fact. Even though I felt justified in speaking out the way I did and satisfied that my actions actually resulted in positive results, when she left my office I still felt a sense of fear and shame that I might have made someone else "mad" at me. It was a disquieting feeling and stayed with me for days.

I wish I could let go of that sense of needing everyone to like me and not making anyone else even remotely unhappy. Because not everyone is going to like me. One of my favorite quotes is "What people think of you is none of your business." I remind myself of that when I'm feeling paranoid that I'm ruffling too many feathers. Engaging in productive conflict is the only way you can be successful in reaching your goals both in your career and personal life. The goal is not to eliminate conflict, but to learn to manage it constructively (and without crying!) while maintaining your integrity and your relationships with others.