Physician Wellness: Taking the First Step

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Physician Wellness: Taking the First Step

What you're saying is I'm not the only one struggling to get all my notes done? Who feels maybe more than a little bit overwhelmed by all there is to get done between home, work, and your finances? We'll be covering things from all these areas with stories and tips to help you take that next step toward your wellness.

Inspiration and Preparation

I started thinking about a podcast after a couple conferences I attended earlier in 2021. First, I attended the White Coat Investor Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy conference in March 2021, meeting virtually a number of the conference presenters and hearing of how they used physician entrepreneurship to move the needle forward in their areas of passion and expertise and I heard of the Doctor Podcast Network. After that conference, I caught the last couple days of sessions from Peter Kim's Leverage and Growth Summit and really started to consider, what about me, could I really do a podcast too? I listened to a bunch of podcasts over the next few months, The Physician Philosopher Podcast, Money Meets Medicine, and The EntreMD podcast, and I did the thought work on what I wanted to talk through and why.

Focus on Physician Wellness

My focus ultimately boiled down to physician wellness. Super niche, I know, with so many different things feeding into discussions around burnout, moral injury, systems issues, personal optimizations, all of that. And yet, being a primary care pediatrician who has been through burnout and still works in a Federally Qualified Health Center and has a small organizational role with electronic medical record optimization, I was still drawn to the topic of physician wellness. Recent conversations with colleagues about their struggles with balance, cutting back hours, financial mistakes they have made, the overwhelm of charting and paperwork, I realized these really are current issues facing many of us in medicine today. And if you're not currently facing them, likely you have previously, you will in the future, or one of your colleagues is going through them now.

Priorities and Direction - The Niche

My goal with this podcast is to cover topics that help you take action today, taking that next step in your wellness journey. Using education to empower physicians in medicine to take the next step in their wellness, hence the name, Med Ed Well. These next steps may be things in your personal life - mindset, priorities, family, friendships. They may be professional things such as workflow or charting optimization strategies or perhaps advocating and negotiating for what you need in terms of schedule or something you know your patients need and would make you more fulfilled in your work role. And last but not least, the financial components of your wellness. For me, not being maxed out in terms of my budget allowed me to cut back my schedule when I faced burnout, and then there are those general insurance and investing principles for different stages of training or after that either no one ever tells you about, or if they do, they may not be revealing their bias as, let's say a financial advisor, where you potentially lose a chance to comparison shop something like a disability insurance quote where getting that broad comparison is especially helpful.

All that to say, physician wellness is multifactorial, and we will cover many of these topics together. This podcast IS targeted towards physicians both during and after training along with medical students, so while other healthcare professionals may benefit from many topics discussed, because I am a physician, I will at times specifically reference physician training and perspectives that differ from that of other healthcare professionals.

How is this going to be supported? A disclosure

Another disclosure, in order to reach as many doctors as possible, this podcast is part of an online business that needs to make money. As part of that, the podcast will have sponsors, some of which will provide an affiliate commission to me for letting you hear about their services. These are opportunities that I take seriously and want them to be valuable services that you might benefit from, at no additional cost to you and often something I have used myself. These opportunities will also not be for everyone, so please evaluate them in light of your own needs in your current season. As an example, medical students typically do not have outside employment during medical school and thus do not have income to protect. The guaranteed standard issue policies available to most in residency or fellowship provide the opportunity to purchase without the medical underwriting that might otherwise exclude many from qualifying. Just ask the Physician Philosopher or check out his blog and podcast. So general educational content, not specific financial advice, but if you are a physician, you probably need disability insurance. Consider it a stress reliever and part of your wellness plan to just take care of that. And if you are looking for a quote now, just check out Pattern today at patternlife.com/mededwell.

Take the next step today!

So if pursuing wellness in medicine sounds good to you, take that next step toward your wellness today!

Please subscribe to the podcast and follow MedEdWell on Instagram or Twitter. Please leave a review, and tell another physician or student to come check out the podcast or blog today! I hope to hear from many of you, what worked, what didn't, what challenges you are facing and would like to hear as future topics.