Why having hobbies can save your medical career [PODCAST]

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We dive into the personal and professional journey of Ben Reinking, a board-certified pediatric cardiologist, medical educator, and certified physician development coach. We explore the importance of maintaining hobbies, finding balance, and how personal interests can help prevent burnout in physicians. Ben shares valuable insights into the challenges of the medical profession and offers practical strategies for sustaining a fulfilling career and personal life.

Ben Reinking is a board-certified pediatric cardiologist, medical educator, and certified physician development coach, as well as the owner of The Developing Doctor. He can also be reached on Instagram.

He discusses the KevinMD article, “Cultivating joy beyond the clinic: a physician’s tale of rediscovering hobbies.”

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we welcome back Ben Reinking. He’s a pediatric cardiologist, a medical educator, and certified physician development coach, founder of The Developing Doctor. Today’s KevinMD article is “Cultivating joy beyond the clinic: a physician’s tale of rediscovering hobbies.” Ben, welcome back to the show.

Ben Reinking: Thanks for having me again, Kevin. I enjoy being here.

Kevin Pho: So let’s jump right into this most recent article about cultivating joy beyond the clinic. Now, before talking about the article itself, what made you decide to write in the first place?

Ben Reinking: Yeah, I think it was just interacting again with the learners and my colleagues and kind of talking about what we did for the weekend. I noticed that there were those of us that were struggling a little bit because they had just been working and working and working, and the people that came in on Monday and were happy to be at work actually spent their weekends doing things that they enjoyed. And so kind of a little light bulb went off in my head: Hey, it’s important that we cultivate these things outside of medicine that are so important.

Kevin Pho: Yeah. So tell us about some of those conversations, especially those physicians who have trouble answering that question because they’ve been working all the time. So are these people just on call, or are they just catching up on charts? Give us an example of the type of physicians who would answer that way.

Ben Reinking: Yeah, so I think being on call is a big one, right? So our schedules, we spend a week on call, so it’s 24/7 straight for a week, and it’s hard to connect with those things outside of work, even if your call is pretty light. But I think there are also just people that are so hypervigilant about checking that inbox and checking their email and not getting behind on charting and things that they spend so much time and effort on that, that they just forget about all the other things outside of life, or that are outside of medicine.

Kevin Pho: Yeah. And when you’re talking to these particular physicians, what kind of sense do you get in terms of their personal, professional satisfaction?

Ben Reinking: Oh, they’re pretty cranky, pretty miserable, to be quite honest. They’re the people that tend to be a little bit crusty throughout the week. And so, you know, they’re not happy at work, and I don’t think they’re that happy at home sometimes either.

Kevin Pho: Yeah. All right, so talk about the article itself.

Ben Reinking: Yeah, you know, one of the things that I reflected on a lot was just growing up. You know, I was fortunate that I had a lot of extended family when I was growing up in my hometown, and so I spent a lot of time with one of my grandfathers. He was really big into horses, and I think he roped me into helping him with his yard work, and then at the end of the yard work, we had to go help them take care of the horses. I just kind of remembered an incident when I was helping to take care of the horses and feeding them, and that just kind of was a light bulb in my head: I think his influence and the things that he did to find joy outside of work and with his family were also things that I had inadvertently adopted, without even realizing that I had adopted some of the things that he also enjoyed.

Kevin Pho: So tell me about the role of hobbies in your own professional life. You’re a pediatric cardiologist, a pretty demanding field in terms of training, and I’m sure what you do now. So talk about the role of hobbies and how you manage to integrate that with your physician life.

Ben Reinking: Yeah, I think there are two things that I recognize that really helped me out. One is I tended to be one of those people that would just kind of grind through things, and so that’s how I got through medical training. I also really like that sometimes in my personal life, so sort of that high-intensity interval training. And so I really like exercising. If I have a bad day, I know that sweating it out makes a big difference for me. And so having twenty to thirty minutes where I can just kind of exhaust myself physically, and that also clears my head mentally, helps me a lot. So exercise is a big part of what I do.

The other thing that I like to do is just get my hands dirty in the dirt. And so we are sort of family famous for salsa at our house, and so right now, this time of year, we are busy getting rid of the last couple of tomatoes and making salsa. So gardening and then taking advantage of the produce that we have is a lot of fun.

Kevin Pho: So when you coach physicians and they come to you with various symptoms of burnout, is there a correlation between their burnout and perhaps a lack of hobbies?

Ben Reinking: Oh, absolutely. I think it’s just that lack of balance, that people don’t even realize, you know, that they’re missing a whole part of themselves outside of work. I talked to someone who specifically took a job after training in the Pacific Northwest because they really wanted to live on the coast and sail and take advantage of some of the things in the Pacific Northwest. They’d been there for seven years and had never actually been to the beach or never been on a sailboat, and that was at the top of their list as to why they moved to that area. And so, you know, time moves fast sometimes, especially when you’re busy, and you just lose sight of the fact that you sometimes lose a piece of yourself when you spend it all at work.

Kevin Pho: So when physicians tell you stories like these, how do you coach them? Because, as you know, pre-med, medicine, residency, fellowship, that’s all-consuming. It’s very difficult sometimes to find hobbies outside of that world. So how do you coach physicians like this who find themselves in that situation?

Ben Reinking: Yeah, I think the first thing is honestly to just gently call them out. And there’s a lot of power in the spoken word. I think that’s really one of the values of coaching. You know, the person that mentioned that they’d moved to the Pacific Northwest and had never been to the coast, you know, I just said, “Wait a second, say that again. How is that possible? You know, how is that possible? Like, how can that have happened?” And you know, it’s just a moment like that, where you have the ability to just pause and reflect, which we frequently don’t get in our busy days, is the first step, I think.

The other, harder piece that is sometimes a little bit squishier for people is going back and just reflecting on what really is important to me, and am I honoring those values and things that are important to me? And that’s probably one of the harder sells about coaching. I mean, I’m a cardiologist for a reason. I like things that are very concrete, and I think a lot of people in medicine are the same way. When you talk about things that are a little less defined, it gets harder to sell people on. But that really is the core, and at the root of the problem is we don’t do things that we value.

Kevin Pho: And how many physicians do you get to actually change that type of mindset and really have that light bulb turn on and say, “You know, medicine shouldn’t be all-encompassing”? Are you successful in a lot of cases in getting them to see the value of a life outside of medicine?

Ben Reinking: Yeah, you know, it’s surprising. It frequently just takes one light bulb moment for people. I will say there’s probably a little bit of a generational difference too. It’s a lot easier for the younger physicians, and I think the physicians in training, to recognize that, “Hey, I’m slipping from who I was during this training process.” It’s a little bit harder for people that have been working in that culture of medicine of just turning the crank. It’s a little more ingrained, and that’s harder to undo, I think. But it works.

Kevin Pho: In your article, you talk about social hobbies versus solitary hobbies, so I get the impression then that hobbies are not created equal. So talk more about that.

Ben Reinking: Yeah, social media and sort of the age that we live in, where we feel like we’re connected to people all of the time because we have instant access on our phones and computers and tablets, but in reality, we’re not really interacting with anyone. And so one of the most important things about hobbies, I think, is making connections not only with yourself but with your community and the people around you. And so doing things like, honestly, even a book group, which a lot of people love, or a book club. You know, that’s a solitary hobby of reading, but then you connect with other people by discussing the book. And so things like that are so important.

Kevin Pho: Any studies that show a correlation between social hobbies and improvement in physician burnout that you know of?

Ben Reinking: Yeah, I mean, there are some great studies out there that just show that interacting with people improves just overall life satisfaction. I think you could also just look at the Blue Zones, look at overall population health, and, you know, those areas where people have longer longevity and just better quality of life also really engage in social activities. And so there’s a lot of evidence out there that supports that.

Kevin Pho: All right, so I had someone talk about the Blue Zones in one of our prior podcasts. For those who aren’t familiar with that term, what exactly are they?

Ben Reinking: You know, there are areas in society, I guess in the world, in different cultures, where people have a longer quality and better quantity of life, and there are just some common factors that those groups of people have: social lifestyles, active lifestyles, eating certain, you know, Mediterranean-type foods and diets. So just a different lifestyle that leads to a better length and quality of life.

Kevin Pho: Yeah. So there’s a certain mindset out there that if you have a life outside of medicine, or if medicine isn’t your number one priority, you’re maybe less of a doctor, right? You’re not putting the patient first if you put yourself sometimes ahead of patients. What do you say to that mindset, that traditional mindset in medicine that we frequently see still in medical training, that precludes us from taking care of ourselves and having hobbies? What do you say to that?

Ben Reinking: Yeah, it’s wrong. It’s the most direct, I think, answer. You know, you can’t take care of your patients if you’re not well. You can’t take good care of your patients if you’re not well. And so there is nothing wrong with saying, “Hey, I’m done at 5:30. I can’t add on that extra patient.” I mean, we have this very strong work ethic in medicine, but it’s simply just not true.

Kevin Pho: How do you run into those headwinds? Do you get pushback from some of these physicians who push back against that mindset and say, “You know, the patient always comes first, and medicine should always be the center part of your life, at the expense of sometimes your family”? Do you have that pushback?

Ben Reinking: Yeah, I think it goes back to then understanding why they think that. So why is it that you think that you can’t be a good physician and also be good to yourself, and what is it in your mindset that is driving that? And, you know, we all went into medicine kind of for three main reasons. One is to help other people. I think that’s just a shared altruistic goal that we have. The other is to just challenge ourselves, and there’s no question that medical training and medicine is hard, and there’s no way to make that better in a lot of situations. It’s still going to be hard no matter what self-care you do.

And I think the other piece that people are more hesitant to talk about is there’s just some financial and personal security that comes with being in medicine. Sometimes that challenge piece and security piece and altruism get rolled up into this weird ball of “I just have to keep working, working, working,” and we have to pull back and untangle those things and recognize that how you’re doing it isn’t the only way to do it.

Kevin Pho: So you were telling that story about that physician who moved to the Pacific Northwest and wasn’t able to go to the beach in, like, seven years or something like that. Now, in order for them to carve out that time to do that, sometimes they would have to set boundaries, right? They have to say no to that extra patient and no to that extra on-call shift and whatnot. Physicians are conditioned not to do that. They’re conditioned to always say yes and do that extra mile. So how difficult is it for physicians to set those boundaries so they can have those hobbies, so they could take care of themselves?

Ben Reinking: It’s hard. I mean, it is hard work. There’s nothing easy about changing what you do. I mean, habits become habits for a reason, and it’s hard to undo them. I think there are a few, you know, a few tips that are helpful. So one is removing as many possible work-related items from your phone, your personal computer, you know, your tablet, setting some clear boundaries that way. That’s an easy way to create a hard stop. I think the other piece is to look around for people who are in a similar job, that you work with, who are doing things differently, and what can you learn from that? And then from that experience, what are the skills that we need to work on and develop that allow you to have the lifestyle that you want?

Kevin Pho: So tell me a coaching success story. Take us into one of your sessions where perhaps a physician comes to you burned out, having zero hobbies, not able to go to the beach and whatnot, and you made some changes and it made an appreciable difference in her life. Can you tell us a sample success story where that coaching moved the needle?

Ben Reinking: Yeah, I had one particular physician who was in family medicine, so saw a large volume of patients every day, and was really focused on the level of detail in the charting. It ended up being the core problem: So much time was spent charting after the visit that there really wasn’t much margin in their life because of that. And interestingly, around them they had providers who were done with their notes near the end of the day, and they had this perspective that their personal notes were so much better than the other providers’ notes because of the time they spent on it.

But I actually convinced them to have someone in their office de-identify some notes, like pull the patient name and information on them, and just put them up side by side, and they couldn’t tell the difference between the two notes without the patient information on them. And so sometimes you have to create a concrete moment for people that helps them realize what the problem is. And then it was just a simple job of kind of finding out what we can do to improve charting, what skills we need to develop. And I’m happy to say, I think their goal was to be able to make it to one of their kids’ football games on Saturday mornings, because they always used Saturday mornings to chart, and they were able to make it to a few ball games. So it was a win.

Kevin Pho: Yeah. We’re talking to Ben Reinking. He’s a pediatric cardiologist, medical educator, and certified physician development coach. Today’s KevinMD article is “Cultivating joy beyond the clinic: a physician’s tale of rediscovering hobbies.” Ben, as always, let’s end with your take-home messages to the KevinMD audience.

Ben Reinking: Yeah, I would say if you are not happy in your job and not happy in your life, and you just feel like you’re grinding away, there is a way to create margin in your life and take back those pieces of yourself that you feel like you’ve lost in training and in medical practice. So I’m always happy to help out people who are looking to do that.

Kevin Pho: Man, thanks again for sharing your perspective and insight. Thanks again for coming back on the show.

Ben Reinking: Yeah, thank you.

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