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Not Quite What I Was Planning

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Years ago, I read a beautiful book called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure edited by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser. The premise, based on Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” is that contributors summed up their lives in six words. Famous participants include Margaret Atwood and Stephen Colbert, among others.

I thought about the book last year when I was at my medical school reunion. A dozen of us sat around a round table and talked about what we had been up to for the last 30 years. After we finished, we concluded that the overriding theme was that all of us were doing something different than what we thought we would be doing. I found that concept refreshing, and I suspect it might reassure current students who feel burdened with big decisions. This year, “Not Quite What I Was Planning” is the theme for my college reunion’s Class Panel. 

Check out the book!

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Grit is Not Enough

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University of Pennsylvania professor Angela Duckworth wrote the best-selling book Grit about the power of passion and persistence in predicting success (her TED talk on grit has over 18 million views), but to her credit, she admits to being nearsighted in her new book Situated,which I’m reading now. 

MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Duckworth asserts in Situated that your environment – workspace, geographic location, mentors, friends, and even the culture you immerse yourself in— counts as much as (or more than) grit in determining success, and she offers many compelling studies to support her point.

According to Duckworth, instead of focusing on sheer willpower, you should situate yourself among people and in places that make your goals easier and temptations harder.

The book is a good read, and its thesis is worth serious contemplation when deciding where to go to medical school, train, and start your career.

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Sleep As a Vital Sign

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“Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds.” — JoJo Jensen, Dirt Farmer Wisdom

As a resident, I spent one horrible week on my surgical rotation clocking 138 hours in the hospital…and I slept only 6 1/2 of those. By the end of the week, I had decided to quit residency. Fortunately, a good night’s sleep helped me turn that decision around.

I recently heard an interesting AMA Journal of Ethics podcast called “Sleep as a Vital Sign” with Dr. Lauren Hale from Stony Brook University. In her interview, she clarifies the distinction between sleep medicine and the study of sleep as a public health issue, the latter of which is her academic interest. She offers policy recommendations to decrease morbidity and mortality from sleep deprivation, like eliminating daylight savings time and making school start times later. She also touches on how the lack of sleep adversely affects medical professionals. 

The podcast episode is brief and interesting. Plus, you can get CME credit for listening :-).

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Four Thousand Weeks

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I’m currently reading a fantastic nonfiction book called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. Four thousand weeks is how much time the average human has on this earth. That doesn’t sound like a lot.

I’d highly recommend the book to those of you who are productivity geeks, folks who are trying to be as efficient as possible with their time – all the time. I’m certainly one of those people.

Unlike other authors, Burkeman recommends that you surrender to the fact that you cannot get everything done and that traditional time management strategies, which are supposed to help you multitask, will fail and cause anxiety. He recommends recognizing that our lives are finite and that we should be in the moment. The author does a fantastic job of persuading even someone like me how important it is to recognize that even if you get your list done, there will always be more items on your next list. 

I’m not much into self-help, but I do recommend this intelligent book.

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Leaving the Medical Workforce

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Beware: The article I’m about to recommend has a bitter tone, but it’s important for those who are considering the medical field to hear all perspectives. Plus, many of the issues this anonymous writer brings up – understaffing, corporate medicine, twisted financial incentives, lack of fulfillment – are on point.

Here’s the piece.

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About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital. She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more

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