If I had known how destructive shift work was for my sleep and health, I don’t think I would have chosen to be an emergency doctor. And while you might not be in emergency medicine, you’re probably still working late hours, doing call at the hospital, or bringing your work home with you.
All doctors have irregular working hours in this respect.
After 8 years of just acccepting the random shifts I was given, I decided to be more pro-active with how I approached my work. I wanted to know if HOW I did my work affected my burnout.
My first step was to pair with a line partner who liked overnights. I traded my overnights for two of her weekend evening shifts. It worked well since my line partner had complementary shift preferences to me and was a natural nighthawk.
Then, with only the rare overnight on my schedule, I started to rearrange my shifts to try and work on specific days. At this point, I didn’t care so much about when the shift occured during the day, but rather which day of the week the shift landed. I knew that weekends were popular for people to want off, so I decided to block out Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays as my “weekend.” At first, I did a lot of swapping to open up the middle of the week. Then I shared with the group my schedule preferences so that they knew to come to me if they wanted a weekend off. Eventually, I asked our team scheduler to give me more of the unpopular days in exchange for a more regular schedule. Working preferentially on the weekends might seem strange to you, but the regularity of my schedule opened up so many possibilities for me. And I started to realize that weekends were a social construct–and a construct that I could reinvent for myself. Now I mainly work at the hospital on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I block off Tues/Wed/Thurs for creative pursuits outside of medicine. I block off Sundays for dedicated family time.
Having a foundational mid-week that I knew would be dedicated to non-clinical goals (like writing, childcare, coaching) helped me get a much needed regular routine for my creative work. I was able to balance side passions with medical life. It gave me space to explore different interests.
It took some creative tinkering, but it was do-able. I love that I can plan things in the mid-week without having to check my hospital schedule first!
Question: “Can you think of a way to reclaim some ME TIME in your week?”
