Does Work-Life Balance Exist For Doctors? | Family Vs. Medicine

And if you guys know me , I work hard to balance and make my family the priority , and so I wanna get on here today and talk to you guys about what that means for you guys . As you go through your pre-med journey , your med school journey , as your journey as physicians , you think it might get easier , but it gets more challenging and the challenges change .

So we're going to talk about today how you can effectively let's have a real discussion about what it means to balance family and work and let's talk about some key strategies we can do to create that balance so we can live a life that we enjoy . And one stat I'm going to leave you with before we hit the intro . Real quick what up Jay ? What up ?

What up y'all ? Everyone say hello to me . It's been a minute , hello , all right . So I want to leave with a stat . Real quick Survey of medical residents revealed that work-life balance is a significant challenge , with 33% citing it as their biggest concern . That's one in three residents . Their biggest concern is work-life balance and having enough for it .

Many residents struggle to find time for personal wellness and family activities due to their demanding schedules . And , guys , it's getting worse . Shannon , what's up ? De'jon , julian , hello , everybody , let's talk about it , let's get into it . Let me hit the intro and we'll get right to it . But stop making excuses , stop whining , stop right , get at it .

No excuses , just dominate . All right , guys . Uh , dr pine's here , pre-med protein expert , and , as always , we're here . It's about positivity , it's about productivity , it's about helping you guys think about things differently , look at things differently and really make your lives better and shape your lives as what you want it to be throughout your medical journey .

Right , we want to have to have fun while we succeed . We want to have fun and succeed the same thing at the same time . And so today we're talking about work-life balance . And this came up as a topic for me because I don't know if you guys saw the Harrison Bucker graduation speech .

If you guys don't know , this is the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs and he gave kind of a crazy speech where he voiced a lot of conservative views and got people a little enraged because he spoke to the fact . He said , hey , women , not to the fact he spoke to a belief . To these women he said , hey , women , don't let the system lie to you .

The greatest thing you'll ever do is have a family , and that's where you get your excitement from . That's really what you're really excited about , not excitement from this . Really what you're really excited about , not a career .

And he said that , and while I think he was extremely wrong in what he said and how he presented it and so forth , I think that it's a great opportunity to talk about values and priorities and making sure that , as you guys go through your career , that you are dictating to medicine what you care about , as opposed to letting medicine and the infrastructure dictate

to you what you care about , as opposed to letting medicine and the infrastructure dictate to you what you should care about . Does that make sense ? I find that so many pre-meds don't enjoy the pre-med process because they aren't pre-medding with passion .

I tell all my students you should figure out what you're passionate about and then go a thousand miles per hour into that , because that is what will stand out to medical schools . You'll be more successful , you'll be able to talk about it better and you'll love the journey you should be enjoying pre-med . I talk to my medical students .

I say , hey , medical school , screw what they're telling you to do . All this , all that , all that , focus on you . I call it a curative , a curative curation . I want you to find something that really nurtures your soul , something that you care about , something that you value . Make that number one , make that your focus and you'll find your purpose .

You'll find your joy in your medical journey . I tell my new attending students hey , listen , now you're a big dog , right , you're out of training . You get to choose even more what your life is . Make sure you choose right . Don't just chase the dollars .

Chase what matters to you , the patient populations that matter to you , a practice that matters to you , a practice that matters to you . Pick the things that matter to you .

And so , in balancing family and life , one of the first things we have to get clear on , guys , is what is balance to us and I think that's what he was speaking to in this speech is that for so many of us , we're told what we're supposed to do , and I see it all the time amongst particularly female right , our female pre-meds , medical students , residents .

I see them as that female track , but it also applies to males in the sense that we're told to strive hard , put your head down , sacrifice , work long hours , focus only on this and within that , we don't ever take time to say wait , what matters to us ? And so we lose out on a lot of things .

And if we look at this I already gave you the one about residency but if we talk about attendings , right , a study published by Mayo Clinic found that the satisfaction with work-life balance among physicians has declined from 48% in 2011 down to 40% in 2014 . It continues all the way down to 29% in the most recent survey .

So imagine that 29% only 29% of physicians are satisfied with the work-life balance in their career . What's up with that ? Three out of every 10 physicians , that's it . That's the only people satisfied . That means seven out of 10 , more than half of all physicians are dissatisfied with the work-life balance .

And my question to all you guys is is how do we change it ? It starts from inside ourselves , because the infrastructure of medicine is not going to change . It is what it is . They want to work you . It's like all industries . They want to work you until you die . They don't care about your happiness .

I don't care how many wellness seminars they have , all kinds of stuff . All they care about is working you and getting every last nickel they can get out of your body . They don't care if they work you to the bone , to the gristle , if you're miserable . All they care about is you working and making them money .

That's what it's about for them , and so what you have to do is be very clear on what matters to you and what you want to do . And I'll give you the example , guys , from my career . I said family . People put that hashtag family first . I believe that hashtag . I've lived that hashtag .

I've lived it my whole life , where I've always believed that family is everything . Only reason I go to work is so I can have money to pay for my family stuff . Right , and if we're being serious , right . Why do we go to work ? Why do we want good jobs ?

Yes , we want to do a job we enjoy , but how many of you guys would love to have all the time and money you could want to be able to spend all that time with your family ? That's what you're really doing it for . We want to put a roof over our heads . We want to put food in our bellies . That's why we go to work .

It's a perk if you can do a job you really like to do , which is what being a physician is awesome for me . I love doing anesthesia . Because I started dating , we had these long conversations about okay , wait , what are we doing with our lives ? What would we value ? We always said no . Number one thing is family . It's our relationship as husband and wife .

Our future husband and wife relationship is us as parents , so our future children is making sure that our core nucleus is tight and that we have everything we need and we won't put that first and anything that takes away from that is a problem .

As I say that to you , for many of you guys , maybe you feel that way , but maybe maybe your parents , maybe your counselors , maybe your peers , maybe people have made you feel bad . Has that happened to some of you guys where you feel bad , even thinking those thoughts that you know ? What you know , what matters to me is being there for my family .

Right , when you say family first , like family first , it's career , you got to go , and I think that is really like , if I can impress anything upon you guys is it's OK to have different priorities than what society wants you to prioritize . We live in this era of virality and everyone seeing eye to eye and concurrent Right this congruent thinking .

It's OK to be divergent , it's OK to think different , it's OK to say you know what , even though no one else wants this . This is what I want , and so we had this conversation early on in our career and at every stage of my career I've worked hard . It takes a lot of work . I've worked hard to make my family the priority .

I've worked hard to keep my family first at all times , even sacrificing opportunities , even sacrificing money and all those kind of things . But at the end of the day , I don't miss that money because I'm glad I get to spend this time with my family . And so for me . I was working at UC San Diego .

I was on faculty there , I was teaching residents , teaching medical students , but I recognized that this job was trying to choke me out , was trying to take the life out of me , because every time I would go in there like , okay , listen , you're the late person , you're going to stay till the OR is closed . Might be 6 , might be 7 , 8 o'clock at night .

I'm like , dang , it's every time Okay , you know what . If you're not that , you know what You're the call person . You're staying 24 hours . I me every day and I recognized dang . I'm missing valuable time with them . I'm missing out on valuable opportunities . This is what really matters to me . Why am I sitting here slaving ?

And so I looked for other opportunities and so I moved out of the university setting and I went into a small private practice where I would make less money but I would have control over my hours and it would allow me to be home for dinner every single night with my kids . And now my kids get weird if they don't see me every night .

They get weird when I'm in here coaching . We got coaching in like 13 minutes I'm going to wrap this up quickly but we got coaching at my students . My kids will pop in , right , and it's okay . We have that open door policy but it's weird to them to not be able to interact and have that direct interaction , I mean .

And so we've cultivated that with our situation . The flip side of that coin is my wife , and when I met my wife , my wife if you guys have never met Shannon , a lot of my students you meet . If you guys find me at an event I'm speaking .

Shannon's frequently there and if you ever have met Shannon you'll know she's like the kindest , smartest , funniest , most awesome , amazing person , truly my better half . And because of all that , all the characteristics she has , she's this amazing powerhouse of a woman .

She early on , even in her early twenties , became a dynamo in her field and she went from providing direct therapies and then providing group therapies and then creating curriculum to then becoming an administrator , then becoming a senior level administrator , then becoming a program founder , and so she moved all the way up to be second in command in her company and

head of the entire Southern California region for her company , and so she's a big time career woman . And then she got pregnant .

And this is the quandary that I think some of our female physicians and even the male physicians get into , where life is one thing , it's all career , we're moving and shaking , we're investing time into this career , but then you get to a point and kids can introduce a situation and it changes your perspective on things .

And I can remember Shannon was career , was busting , it was balling , and then we had our kid and she went back to work . She stayed home for , I think , two months and then she went back to work . She stayed home for I think two months and then she went back to work and she was only going to do part-time .

And literally two days into the job I come home from my shift and Shannon's in the living room , baby's sleeping , and she's like , got tears in her eyes . I'm like what is going on ? And she's like I just I don't want that anymore . I'm like what do you mean ? What's going on ? She's like I just feel bad Every minute I'm there .

I want to be here with my kid . And I said , okay , no problem , we'll do that . And so she stopped her big , you know , nice paying job . That was a nice income to have while I was a resident and she stayed home with our son .

And then she stayed home and every single day , right , I look at her in awe because she runs our house with that same CEO attitude that she would run a company .

And so my kids are amazingly happy , I'm amazingly happy , we're all good and it's a beautiful , beautiful thing that we're both experiencing as much time with our kids as we can possibly get , and that's a wonderful choice . And so for a lot of you guys , as women who are pre-meds , women who are medical students , women who are attendings .

There's a lot of pressure from the infrastructure to feel like you have to choose medicine or kids . You have to choose . Well , I'm going to work my job or I'm going to be there for my kids . And so I want you to recognize and realize that it's not a sunk cost and this is what happens to a lot .

I'm telling you , I have a colleague I have actually two colleagues right now who are just coming back from maternity leave and they're miserable every single day at work . And when you have conversations with them , like man , like why don't you just stay home ?

And they're like I did four years of college , I did medical school , I did residency , I've worked too long and too hard to give up this career and I said but you're miserable , I just can't , I just can't . And we have to recognize , guys , that's only in your mind . You know what I'm saying .

What good is a career if you're not happy with what that career generates to you and brings to you and creates in your life ? Do you guys get what I'm saying ? Imagine that I'm literally watching . They both came back from maternity leave like a week apart and they are miserable at work every single gosh darn day wanting to be with their kids .

But they feel this pressure of oh , I've spent so much time building this career . People will look at me sideways if I leave this career . We can't be concerned with that . You have to be concerned with your happiness , and I think this is why some people walk around miserable , right Burnout is rampant . I don't feel burnout . Yes , I feel stress at work .

You know it's anesthesia , it's stressful , but I don't feel burnout because my life is fruitful . My life is exactly what I want it to be . I've cultivated a life of things that matter to me . Put myself first , my family first , because that's what matters to me , and so how can I be mad at anything ?

And so I encourage all you guys to recognize it's not a sunk cost if you choose to either be part-time or be no time and spend time with your family , because that's you doing what matters to you , and what you'll find is you won't miss that work . You won't miss that work . And actually there's a great book and I'm blanking on the title right now .

I'm not going to look it up because you guys want me to talk to you , but there was this book where this physician went and met with all of these people the palliative care physician and went and met with all these people at the end of their life and he asked them . He said hey , what are the things that you ? He asked ?

A bunch of questions and one of the questions he asked what was the thing , the one biggest regret you have about your life as you go to die ? Right now , and across the board , it was like overwhelmingly all the people , almost all the people , said I regret not spending more time with my kids and less time at work .

Right , the number one regret of the dying is I regret not spending less time at work and more time with my kids . What does that tell you guys ? Right , truthfully , comment in the box right now . What does that tell you ? What does that mean to you ?

How does that frame Imagine that the biggest regret of people dying is that they work too much and spend too little time with their family . What does it tell you ? While you guys comment right there , also like this video , let me know you guys are still here with me , rolling with me , dr Pineset here .

Like this video , let me know you guys are glad that I'm back in live action . I've been gone exactly three months . I took a three-month hiatus 90 days , a little social media cleanse but I'm back .

We're going to be live action twice a week , going forward , because I like getting on here , I like purposeful life , I like spending time with you and helping you guys create better lives for yourself , create your careers , succeed in a big way . It's nothing better . It's that time of year where I got students choosing their acceptances .

I saw Spencer's on here getting his acceptance . I saw Dejan . He's got his acceptance to medical school . He's trying to decide what he's going to do about that . That's the kind of success that I want to see . Right , that's what gets me going , that's what makes my life purposeful , that balance .

And so , for you guys recognize that when it comes to did we lose me ? Did I drop out of the feed ? Is that what I'm hearing right now ? Let me know . Can everybody hear me ? Are we back ? Is the feed back or are we still no feed ?

I can wait a second , we can talk , okay , okay , so I guess it's cutting out , but either way , we're going to record this and we're gonna put it up later . So we're gonna keep going . I apologize , the live is cutting out . Uh , this happens . Uh , you know , the the beauty of live will get this rectified and cleaned up for you guys .

Um , but the point is and the premise is is that we have to cultivate the life that we want . We have to ask ourselves what am I working for ? Money's empty y'all . We only use money to buy stuff , to get stuff , and so you're working all this time . What are you using that money to actually get and to obtain ?

And if it's not something that's really fruitful and meaningful to you , then it's nothing , it's all empty . And , yes , you can take pride to you , then it's nothing , it's all empty . And yes , you can take pride in your job , but the job is not the only thing that you should take pride in .

You should take pride in the fact that whatever you value whether it's traveling , whether it's kids , whether it's whatever that's what will sustain you , that is what will keep you from burnout , that is what will make you feel like the end of your life , like you lived the life you wanted to live . And I'm here to tell you be radical , be different .

Live the life you want to live . As a pre-med , as a medical student , as a resident , as a doctor . Live the life that you want to live . Choose what matters to you , and there's no problem with choosing family .

There's no problem with either giving up your career entirely to be with the family or with working part-time , and as long as you and your partner and your family members are okay with it , it can make it work . It's all that matters , guys . So I apologize that we're breaking up on here . I have a lot more to say , but we'll continue this another time .

I'm going to get over to coaching anyway and get ready for my study coaching and my pre-med coaching tonight . We are live action 5 pm guys on the website . So get over there .

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If you're ready and you're like man , dr Pineset , I want to get all your goodness all the time and be connected to you . I need every bit of wisdom you have . Then please get to my website . It's premedproductivitycom . Amazing coaching on there for you , amazing opportunity to transform and get the life you want . So I appreciate y'all have a wonderful day .

I will see you guys again next Monday , so it'll be Monday and Wednesday . Monday and Wednesday we're live action . Bring you guys this goodness to help you guys move forward . If you've enjoyed this , let me know and I'll see you guys next time . That's it for another episode . Show your love by smashing the like button and commenting in the box below .

Today is the day , guys . No more excuses , no more complaining . You're going to take your future into your own hands . You're going to dominate . You're going to be successful . Into your own hands , you're going to dominate . You're going to be successful . I challenge you what are you going to do today to make your life better ?

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