{"id":693,"date":"2012-01-27T10:54:54","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T15:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogstemp2.wpengine.com\/?p=693"},"modified":"2012-01-27T10:54:54","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T15:54:54","slug":"finding-my-center-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2012\/01\/finding-my-center-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding My Center…Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Nobody ever said that residency (or medicine in general) was easy. Still, I don\u2019t think I expected so much of my time to be taken up by my job. Don\u2019t get me wrong — I love what I do — but it\u2019s not as easy as other occupations to \u201cleave work at work.\u201d As an intern, I was lost and confused many times about diagnosis and treatment plans for my patients. I\u2019m not one to ask a lot of questions, so I took it\u00a0upon myself to research these things after work. I usually made a to-do list of things that I did not know and\u00a0had to look up and understand in the evening. I continued this habit throughout my residency. This was\u00a0great for my learning but not so great for my personal life.<\/p>\n

I was spending all day at work and then all evening thinking about (or preparing for) work. I didn\u2019t have any time for me.<\/p>\n

With the time commitment of the daily job for medical personnel, it is very important to find things to do outside of work to both relieve stress and give the mind some rest. I have been playing tennis as long as I can remember. I played competitively as a child and into high school and college. During medical school, I gave it up. I can\u2019t say that it was only because I didn\u2019t have time but also because I stopped enjoying it. I am a competitive person by nature and I think I was trying to challenge myself academically and put personal fitness on the back burner.<\/p>\n

Near the end of my final year of residency, I started to notice the tennis courts at my apartment again. I started going out on the court by myself\u00a0to practice\u00a0my serves\u00a0for 20 minutes here and there and I realized how much I missed\u00a0playing. I found a group of residents\u00a0who also play tennis and we started playing together as often as possible. We would meet at the park directly after work and play for 1-2 hours. Not only did this build camaraderie between coworkers but it was a great stress reliever and\u00a0good exercise. \u00a0I know not all people relieve stress with physical activity, but as recently reported\u00a0 in Journal Watch<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0even 15 minutes of low-volume activity can significantly lower mortality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Playing tennis again was my way of \u201ccentering myself\u201d and setting aside time for me again. I have seen positive improvements in both my attitude and productivity at work and at home. I’d love to hear what activities do the same for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nobody ever said that residency (or medicine in general) was easy. Still, I don\u2019t think I expected so much of my time to be taken up by my job. Don\u2019t get me wrong — I love what I do — but it\u2019s not as easy as other occupations to \u201cleave work at work.\u201d As an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-residency","tag-resident-experience"],"yoast_head":"\nFinding My Center...Court - Insights on Residency Training<\/title>\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\/2012\/01\/finding-my-center-court\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finding My Center...Court\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nobody ever said that residency (or medicine in general) was easy. Still, I don\u2019t think I expected so much of my time to be taken up by my job. 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She received her Bachelor of Arts\/MD in a 6-year combined program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Dr. Astik was an Internal Medicine resident at UMKC from June 2008 to July 2011 and currently is completing an extra year as a Chief Resident. She is planning to apply for a Gastroenterology fellowship in 2012. 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