Eileen Barrett, MD, MPH, SFHM, MACP, is an internal medicine hospitalist and medical educator in Albuquerque. She has held several leadership roles in physician wellness, DEI, and CME, both in employed and volunteer work. She is a former New Mexico Chapter Governor and Regent of the Amercan College of Physicians, a multistate District Chair for the Society of Hospital Medicine, and Advocacy Committee Vice Chair for the American Medical Women’s Association. She and her husband, Sam, enjoy skiing, hiking, reading, and goofing off with their kiddos, Daisy and Dahlia.

In this Episode: Dr Barrett talks about her mindset that "I get to be a physician", her experience with key advice and key times from mentors, and her drive for advocacy and sense of purpose. She discusses her pivots from rural practice in the Indian Health Service, her choice to go to academia and her choice to leave academia more recently.  She reflects on her time as an Ebola Aid Worker and how it contributed to her sense of purpose and humanity.

Listen in to see how she finds wellness, places to visit in her home state of New Mexico, and the books we are reading right now! There is a challenge for you at the end!

Wellness Pearls:

1. Surround yourself with people you love to be around AND that love to be around you.

2. Look for meaningful work that makes you feel great.

Explore the Positivity Toolkit from Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive

by Barbara Fredrickson, Kimberly Farr, et al.

Sonja Raaum, MD FACP is an Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine and academic hospitalist at the University of Utah. She is also a Well-being Champion for the Utah Chapter of ACP. As an educator, she is committed to training competent and compassionate physicians.

In this Episode:  Dr Raaum discusses how she has addressed some of the challenges of an early career physician with a reset in her personal philosophy, her time-hacks, and in redefining success. She is learning more about compassion and working to instill that into the physicians she trains in a meaningful way as well as practice it personally. 

Take Home Pearls for Compassion:

1- Look for Connection:  We all have experienced suffering in some way. You are not alone.

2- Recognize Suffering in Others:  Be aware and empathic.

3- Authentically Approach Compassion: "You try" is a start. 

Explore the ACP IM Emotional Support Video series "Internists: Take Care of Yourself Too" at the following link. This includes Dr Raaum's videos on Maintaining Compassion and Applying Compassion.

https://www.acponline.org/practice-resources/physician-well-being-and-professional-fulfillment/im-emotional-support-hub/acp-im-emotional-support-video-series

In the last of this Spring-Cleaning series in the Weekend I Wonder episodes, I discuss setting boundaries, creating margin, and lessening distractions.

This is based on the article at https://womeninwhitecoats.com/protecting-your-priorities-and-living-an-intentional-life/

Dr. Micah Beachy is an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Hospital Medicine for the University of Nebraska where he works a hospitalist and also serves as the vice president and chief quality officer for Nebraska Medicine. In his role, he has accountability over quality, patient safety, clinical effectiveness, population health, medical informatics, and experience for patients and providers. He also serves as the Governor of the American College of Physicians Nebraska Chapter and has been extensively involved with ACP at the national level serving as Chair of the Council of Early Career Physicians, on the Health and Public Policy Committee, the Well-being Task Force and the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.

In this Episode:

Dr Beachy talks about what led to his interest in incorporating Well-being work into his personal and professional life and how you might create opportunities for yourself. In his system role he has worked to encourage this in a way that doesn't create more burden on the physician. His strategy is to identify things that cause dissatisfaction, to measure what matters, and address these issues.  He discusses four ways the University of Nebraska Medicine is addressing Well-being in the COVID era that can be continued after the pandemic. Listen in to see if you can apply this in your professional home.

Take Home Pearls of Well-being Wisdom:

1. Leverage Technology for your benefit.

2. Shift your mindset to Work-Life Integration rather than Work-Life Balance

3. Set Priorities and Create space for what matters most and what you are passionate about.

Keep up the spring cleaning by using the 4 D strategy to trim the to-do-list.

This was based on the article: https://womeninwhitecoats.com/narrowing-down-the-to-do-list/

Dr. Taryn Rose is an orthopedic surgeon turned shoe designer, who married fashion and function in 1999 and changed the footwear industry forever.  Her idea of being dressed with a sense of well-being touched a nerve with women from coast-to-coast, creating a dedicated following for her numerous collections.  A formally trained surgeon,  Dr. Rose witnessed the serious foot problems caused by fashionable footwear and saw a need to combine her knowledge of foot biomechanics with her passion for fashion to spread ease to women everywhere.   After a decade of building Taryn Rose International to become a $40 million dollar company, she sold it, and a couple years later returned energized and inspired and began creating partnerships and collections with both the Home Shopping Network (HSN)and high-end retailer Neiman Marcus.  Now, two decades later, Dr. Rose is disrupting the footwear space again with architect/engineer Enrico Cuini, using a new insole technology that creates the “perfect heel” for the Enrico Cuini luxury shoe collection. In addition to earning her medical degree from University of California School of Medicine in Los Angeles, Dr. Rose has been recognized with numerous honors in the business and entrepreneurship arena.  Her shoes were featured in the Smithsonian museum in 2007 and she was invited to meet First Lady Laura Bush at the White House.  Dr. Rose has been covered on a variety of television programs, newspapers, and magazines including Oprah, CNN, Today Show, New York Times, People magazine, Entrepreneur, In Style, Elle, and countless more.

Dr. Rose believes that there are many ways in which we can empower women. Her business strategy was just that-make women comfortable while they are multitasking in the many important roles that they play. She talks about how this needs to be extrapolated to the health care industry which is not really designed for that.

Supporting each other, especially women supporting each other is important. In a polarized environment, her philosophy is "scroll on by". If you don't agree or like something, it is OK to move on from that after making your voice heard. Women need their tribes for growth and development and most importantly, support! Nurturing and supporting each other in those tribes and lifting each other up is important.

Taryn Rose hopes that the sacred doctor physician relationships will some day return to their previous state. She hopes that the mass resignation stops and that physicians continue to stay in medicine as we are essential to society. Society also needs to be informed and needs to understand the workings of this industry. Making platforms for physicians that makes it easier to stay is essential. 

Taryn's pearls of wisdom:

1) Give yourself grace

2) Put your mask on first

3) Fear regret more than failure!

Taryn's book that she is presently reading: History of the World 

https://www.amazon.com/History-World-J-M-Roberts/dp/0199936765

Listen in for some strategies to spring clean your priorities to sweep up overwhelm.

Here is the link to the original article: https://womeninwhitecoats.com/overcoming-overwhelm-by-setting-priorities/

Robyn Tiger, MD trained and practiced as diagnostic radiologist until making a pivot to help herself and other physicians. She is on a mission to empower physicians with self-care tools backed by science and research. With physician burnout on the rise, Robyn knows firsthand what it’s like to love your job while also coping with stress, anxiety, overwhelm, imbalance and even illness. She is deeply passionate about helping her colleagues relieve stress, elevate calm and live their best lives! She does so with yoga therapy, meditation and life coaching in her innovative CME accredited courses, private coaching, and podcast that focus on complete physical, mental, and emotional well-being and resilience. 

In this Episode: Dr Tiger discusses the symptoms she had of chronic stress and what shift she made to reverse them.  We didn't learn about how to care for ourselves during out training, but we can now. We discuss multiple proven tools to take care of ourselves. 

Take Home Pearls for Wellness: 

1- You have the ability to be "you"- to make a choice to feel differently. You just need to learn how.

2- You are not alone. 

3- Ask for help.

You can learn more about Dr. Robin Tiger and her programs at www.StressFreeMD.net

In this week's Weekend I Wonder series: How can you apply the idea of spring cleaning to you to-do-list, to clear the clutter, and find clarity.

We would love to hear from you Our email is [email protected]