Career and Life Planning Guidebook for Medical Residents

The Medical Relationship “It’s not about finding the perfect job. It’s about finding the job that offers the best balance of what matters most to you and your family: location, salary and benefits, vacation time, opportunities for education and advancement, mentorship, clinical and/or surgical environment, workplace culture, and colleagues. After seven years of residency and fellowship, it was a major priority for us to recharge post- training, and to settle into our new home, so we made sure to negotiate extra time before the new job began for unpacking and, of course, a vacation!” – Megan Sharma, author of “Memoirs of a Surgeon’s Wife: I’m Throwing Your Damn Pager into the Ocean” F I E L D N O T E S R E A D : Developing Self-Awareness and Acceptance Do you feel like you have a good understanding of yourself? Your likes and dislikes, your triggers, your communication style, and your ability to create and manage your relationships? If you answered “yes,” you’d be in the minority! Many of us have low self-awareness and a fairly bruised relationshipwith ourselves. Self-love?What’s that? We can be overly critical, blame ourselves or play the victim, or harden ourselves, closing off our hearts in an effort to try to protect ourselves. We fall into the same patterns, then we blame ourselves, or others, and continue the cycle. The first crucial step in building a happy home life, a loving and healthy relationship, and a fulfilling career, is deepening your understanding of yourself and taking personal responsibility for what you are thinking and how you are acting. It’s the necessary first step in creating happiness in your relationship and in your profession. Consider for a moment this basic truth: When you’re meeting your personal needs and you feel good about yourself, you’ll be able to bring more happiness and harmony into your relationship. You’ll be more available for your partner and find more fulfillment in your time with them. In turn, your partner will be free to enjoy being with you! Likewise, feeling content personally and in your relationship causes you to feel more content at work. Then the reverse also becomes true. Contentment in your professional life improves home life and home life im- proves personal contentment. It’s a self-feeding cycle that starts and ends with you. P r o f e s s i o n a l R e l a t i o n a l P e r s o n a l 71 WWW.PHYSICIANCAREERPLANNING.COM