A wise friend who had completed residency told me prior to my starting training that the key to having fun was “never sit down when you get home from work.”
Three years out of fellowship and practicing as a psychiatrist in Brooklyn, the words still resonate today. The residents and medical students that rotate with me marvel at the stories of my full time acting career as a resident performing in multiple shows as a lead, having an improv team that toured, and lastly starring in a Bud Light commercial that filmed in Argentina! They all ask, “How?!”
My answer still remains the simple advice my friend gave me eight years ago.
Going through training, we know as young doctors, we are not “out there” after work like friends in finance or law, and do not carry the same income compared to our peers. I found residents making negative statements like, “being a resident is too hard” or “I am too busy” to go see friends and or have new experiences.
I refused to buy into that passive, negative mentality. Through residency, I took multiple acting classes and improv classes. I began auditioning for shows where rehearsals were at night or on weekends. I made it work. Residency became an incredible time in my life. I developed and nurtured myself much more than simply going to work. Even as an attending, that mantra has stuck. I now produce documentary films and write books.
Now one may say, “Yeah, but that’s psychiatry.”
And this may be true, but enter my wife who was a medicine resident at that time. Through the rest of her training (after we began dating end of second year), through fellowship, and now as assistant fellowship director for a cardiology program, she and I have shared numerous wonderful experiences such as joining Lincoln Center’s Film Society, becoming marathon runners, and learned instruments. She took on the attitude that even if home by seven, there’s a good four to five hours left in the night to go explore and diversify our life. We even felt better at work.
I know it’s not easy. Try not to succumb to the attitude that being a resident or junior attending has to be this grueling, negative experience where life just “shuts down.” Having those automatic negative thoughts will impact your mood and you will prophesize that life is miserable. These are some of the prime years of our lives. Embrace them. Focus energies on enhancing life outside of work. Start small with dedicating time to the gym to assure healthy physical fitness, and then expand your horizons working to enculturate yourself a few times a month with other experiences.
Just as I teach kids in my practice tools to enhance executive functioning skills, you too will learn how to persevere through the difficult times. You will be happier knowing that becoming a doctor is not an isolated, all-consuming experience. Just remember, don’t sit down when you get home.
Johnny Lops is a psychiatrist and is the author of the upcoming book, Reinvent Yourself: Essential Tools From A Brooklyn Psychiatrist Who Has Seen It All. He can be reached at his self-titled site, Dr. Johnny Lops.
