parenting
Dressing Your Best, Inside Out
By: Natalie Tully Every year after the post-midnight New Year’s celebrations wind down, we each start the all-too familiar process of declaring resolutions for the coming twelve months. In that spirit, I hope to explore ideas (most old, but perhaps a few you haven’t heard) and encourage some of you to put on your best self in 2017- mind, body, and wardrobe. Dressing your best-literally Fair warning: most of my clothing is sportswear and I prefer the DMV and the Dentist to going clothes shopping. That said, this is something I struggle with but have found strategies that result in me feeling more confident in professional situations without excessive strain. Err on the Conservative-Yes, you’ve heard this ad nauseum, but no matter your career stage or if it’s an interview, clinic, or social event, you never want your clothing to distract from you. If you question your outfit’s appropriateness, either...
The Road to Wellness
By Jaime Lewis The road to wellness is often less than straight and narrow. Some stretches are full of potholes and construction barriers, causing delays, requiring tolls and taxes for passage, while other sections are smoothly paved, wide open, and headed straight into the sunset. However the journey proceeds I have found it is peppered with choices and opportunities to make myself a little happier, a bit healthier, and perhaps a little more “well”. Some moments it’s a choice of how to respond or react, how to understand my own emotions, or how to interpret the actions of another. Other days it’s making the choice to eat the healthier meal, to run the extra mile, to play with my children, or in my professional sphere- to finish up my charts, respond to a committee request, or spend a few extra moments with a resident. Recently I have worked to formulate...
Coming soon! AWS on Facebook
By Cornelia Griggs Like most surgical residents, I used to think of social media as an easy way to connect with friends, to discover interesting articles, and a way to occupy my hands during the (few) idle moments of my day. Whether it was scrolling through Instagram while waiting for an elevator or checking out articles on Facebook before I fell asleep at night, social media was just a casual time filler. Over the past year, however, social media has played an increasingly important role in my professional world. Shortly after I had my daughter in October, one of my attendings added me to a secret group on Facebook for surgeon mothers. The group is an offshoot of a hugely popular community that many of you may have heard about- the Physician Moms Group, which now has over 60,000 members. As Dr. Stephanie Bonne described in her blog post last...
An Open Letter to Young Women Considering a Career in Surgery
This post originally appeared in Hot Heels, Cool Kicks, & a Scalpel Dear Young Woman Considering a Career in Surgery, It was lovely to meet you the other day. Many times a month, a young woman just like you comes to me with similar interests and concerns. “I really love surgery,” she says, ” But I am afraid of the lifestyle and I really want to have a family.” Oh, and thank you for also inviting me to speak at your seminar the other day on Women in Traditionally Male Dominated Fields. I have been speaking at similar panel sessions since 2005 when I was a bit of a novelty at my training program as a clinical PGY-4 with an infant daughter. Your collective curiosity on what my life must be like is of great interest to me because to me it’s just my life. It’s the only reality that...
#AWSfood4thought : Here’s to the Dads
By Heather Logghe This Father’s Day I would like to give special thanks to the dads who lovingly support their women surgeon partners. My husband, Chris, has been one of them. I embarked on my intern year when my daughter, Sierra, was only three months old. The journey never would have been possible without Chris, who left his “dream job” to fulfill the role of lead parent. Notably, three of my fellow female residents also had children cared for by stay-at-home dads. Just as their husbands had done for them, Chris’s love and support made the emotional and logistical challenges of residency surmountable. During orientation week when I was still nursing, requiring me to“pump” away from home for the first time, I found I had forgotten an essential part for the process; Chris brought it in without hesitation. He also delivered homemade meals when I was on call, while picking...
Distracted Driving
By Stephanie Bonne As a trauma surgeon, my main academic interest has been injury prevention. It just makes sense to me – the easiest trauma to recover from is the one that never happened to begin with. This takes on many forms, from violence prevention to safety, to addressing the problems at the intersection of poverty, education, and injury. As part of this mission, I have occasional speaking engagements in the community. Last year, I was asked to speak at my state’s highway safety coalition meeting about distracted driving. I prepared a powerpoint full of statistics and videos, and stood in front of several hundred people, emphasizing the dangers of distracted driving and how important it was for everyone to spread the word. But like most physicians, I was terrible about practicing what I was preaching. It started with checking text messages at stop lights, but got worse from there....
Creating your own academic timeline
by Christina Cellini, MD, FACS, FASCRS This topic came to me during a grand rounds given by a well-known surgeon in his mid-career - henceforth will be referred to as “WKS”. I had just returned from my second three-month maternity leave in two years and was looking forward to hearing about what advice he had to give. That morning WKS gave a talk about how he advanced academically starting from residency to his early attending years that eventually led to his promotion to associate professor. His talk was very informative, and he made a really big deal about being present for your family while trying to achieve your goals. All in all it was a thoughtful presentation. However a few things caught my attention and highlighted how everyone’s situation is unique. One piece of advice given was that one should constantly “be writing papers” and even to “get up at...
