{"id":3088,"date":"2020-12-31T12:17:09","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T17:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/?p=3088"},"modified":"2021-01-04T08:19:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T13:19:45","slug":"what-time-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"What Time Is It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sneha<\/a>

Dr. Shah is a Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at the University of Colorado.<\/p><\/div>\n

How many minutes have you given yourself to read this post?<\/h4>\n

There was a time when none of us could tell time. Imagine not knowing what the ever-moving hands of a clock are trying to reveal. My memories skew, but in that era before I could tell time, all I remember is laughter, effervescence, and the occasional injury. (The first time I hit my \u201cfunny bone\u201d was quite the scare)!<\/p>\n

Now, we can\u2019t seem to escape it. No matter where we look: car dashboards, microwaves, and the multi-functional faces of Apple iWatches, which dare tell time once in a while. Such a fascination with constant timekeeping has robbed us of ever being fully present in the present. In fact, the \u201cpresent\u201d is such a gift that the verb and noun for it are identical.<\/p>\n

As a medical student, I couldn\u2019t wait to get started as a doctor. Then, it was time to be<\/em> one \u2014 intern year. Lo and behold, inaugural moments of internship transformed into hurried hours and then into dismaying days. The hard work was setting in, and I found myself rushing toward the end of each day, wondering if I\u2019d made the right choice. The excitement and wonder of becoming a doctor that I felt as a medical student had passed as quickly as 80 hours did in a week. The more I looked at the clock, waiting for 5 o\u2019clock to come, the slower it seemed to arrive. Shockingly, in all this perceived slowness, the work became a blur \u2014 akin to the trees zooming by a fast-moving commuter train. Still, for this high school \u201cmathlete,\u201d a week of vacation never seemed as long as a week in the ICU.<\/p>\n

Are you multi-tasking while reading this?<\/h4>\n

Even as I gained knowledge and fostered my clinical competency, whatever amount of wonder was left continued to fade. To stop myself from reaching whichever breaking point I was accelerating toward, I hit the breaks and started to search, or rather, re-search for what I knew I once had. Much like the stuttering second hand of a dying watch \u2014 was I burning out? With introspection, I realized the culprit was efficiency.\u00a0<\/em>In an effort to achieve maximum efficiency, I was rushing and multitasking, both of which led to mistakes and ultimately created more work for me. All the while, the clocks around me kept ticking.<\/p>\n

With regular practice and gentle discipline, I became resigned the idea of never being done and focused on doing. Time spent with patients felt longer; yet, I was rarely running behind. Despite the scattered attention, a concept inseparable from our profession, I began seeing things clearly. To most of us, efficiency is moving faster … but what if moving slower and more deliberately is actually how we create efficiency?<\/p>\n

\"Practice

Courtesy of pixy.org (CC0)<\/p><\/div>\n

Giving time is giving respect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

During my third year of residency, I sat across from each patient, task, and colleague without looking at the clock. During most of residency, I wore a broken watch, which I’d jokingly say was for \u201cfor fashion, not function.\u201d<\/p>\n

We forged this ethereal phenomenon of time into shackles and bound ourselves forever to its mercy. I\u2019ve broken free, and I am a better doctor for it, I think.<\/p>\n

\"NEJM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How many minutes have you given yourself to read this post? There was a time when none of us could tell time. Imagine not knowing what the ever-moving hands of a clock are trying to reveal. My memories skew, but in that era before I could tell time, all I remember is laughter, effervescence, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1306,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,1042,19,27,31,33,756,37],"class_list":["post-3088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-residency","tag-art-of-medicine","tag-burnout","tag-communication","tag-healthy-choices","tag-patient-care","tag-reflections","tag-resident-burnout","tag-resident-experience"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Time Is It? - Insights on Residency Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Shah wears a broken watch, because spending every minute worrying about time and efficiency isn't ... efficient.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Time Is It?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Shah wears a broken watch, because spending every minute worrying about time and efficiency isn't ... efficient.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Insights on Residency Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-31T17:17:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-04T13:19:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/08\/Sneha-Shah-1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sneha Shah, MD\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sneha Shah, MD\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/\",\"name\":\"What Time Is It? - Insights on Residency Training\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-31T17:17:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-04T13:19:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#\/schema\/person\/1ffa2dd16f3542a9070d80729adb14b5\"},\"description\":\"Dr. Shah wears a broken watch, because spending every minute worrying about time and efficiency isn't ... efficient.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2020\/12\/what-time-is-it\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Time Is It?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/\",\"name\":\"Insights on Residency Training\",\"description\":\"Observation of residents across diverse medical specialties\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#\/schema\/person\/1ffa2dd16f3542a9070d80729adb14b5\",\"name\":\"Sneha Shah, MD\",\"description\":\"Sneha is a Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at the University of Colorado. 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