Below are the episode show notes and transcript. Some episode transcripts have been edited more than others, but they are up in the meantime to help those who would rather read and for searchability on the web. Extensive editing has not been prioritized as I seek to both produce regular content and maintain my own wellness. Enjoy!
Show Notes
Family…
It’s part of everyone’s story.
Whether good, bad, absent, or otherwise.
It could also be community with others at work or some other group.
Investing in connections with family can help your wellness regardless of prior circumstances. Listen to episode 26 to learn more!
Then get your work done faster with 10 tips from my free PDF guide, Maximize Your Clinical Efficiency! Click to get your guide NOW!
Today’s sponsor: StudentLoanAdvice.com/mew – Get help with your student loan plan and book a consult today by going to studentloanadvice.com/mew
Transcript
Family, biological foster adopted family, the community and connection found with colleagues or friends outside of work. Family can be beautiful, messy, hard absent, or any of the above, but as a physician or someone in medicine, that human connection is so important to wellness. Listen to the rest of today’s episode to explore how to invest in family today.
Welcome to the MedEdWell podcast, where physicians get empowered to take the next step in their wellness, personally, professionally, and financially. I’m your host, Dr. Ryan Stegink, a practicing general pediatrician and online entrepreneur.
Thank you so much for joining me here on the MedEdWell podcast. We’re already to episode 26. I’m so thankful for all of you subscribing listening and sharing these episodes. For those of you looking to get home sooner, to improve your efficiency, to get stuff done, check out my free guide, maximize your clinical efficiency. It’s a PDF guide with 10 tips of things that are have been helpful for me getting things done at work. It’s still a work in progress. I’m still trying to implement them.
And I’m sure there’s other things that I could incorporate into my workflows. Grab your copy today at www.mededwell.com/efficiencyguide, the link will be in the show notes and then send me a message. Tell me what resonated with you. Any other tips that you might have today. We’re gonna be talking about investing in family and how that helps wellness. We’ll talk about how investing in family takes time over time, how it takes intentionality and how it takes an external focus. But before we get into the rest of today’s episode, let’s hear from today’s sponsor.
Do you have mortgage-sized student loans? Are you confused about how to manage your student loan debt and ensure that you are following the right plan or just want that you’re on the right path? Today’s sponsor studentloanadvice.com was created to provide you with the best solutions to manage your student loans, create a customized student loan plan today for more information, and to schedule an appointment, visit studentloanadvice.com/mew. The link will be in the show notes. And now back to today’s show.
So for today, we’re talking about how investing in family life can shape wellness. For those of us in medicine, you as a person or a child first, then maybe a sibling, a partner, parent, any number of other roles that can fit into a family context. Now I’m not gonna suppose that I understand the challenges or hurts that you have been through my experience, maybe different than yours. We can each bring perspective to these discussions. Even as some memories of family are joyful and others are painful and difficult. So a family has been really hard for you consider whether the following things could be helpful or improving some of these relationships, or if that’s not possible, maybe they’re no longer in your life or it wouldn’t be safe. Consider how you could these concepts to other relationships, friends, colleagues, or groups that you’re a part of in the community.
Having some family support is super important when wellness is threatened as it will be by the stresses and hard times in both life and in medicine. So how to invest in family life to help wellness.
First, investing in family takes time over time for me, I had a childhood with many memories with my parents and brothers vacations, camping bike rides, gathering for holidays. And now weddings as the family has grown other areas. When I met my wife and got to know her, started dating that relationship took time over time, going on dates, spending time with friends and family. Now with my daughter almost two years old, we’ll go on family walks trips to the park with the swings and slides. Those are all experiences that build connection over time.
One of my daughter’s current favorite activities was first introduced by my parents who took her on a carousel ride while wife and I were on vacation. Now my daughter loves it. She says horsey horsey. And we ride it every time we go to that particular museum. So in order to be able to invest that time in family, you can’t be in the hospital or the clinic all the time. We talked in episode 15 about taking your time off. Now I know that may be difficult and it may require planning in advance. And there’s other emergencies that have changed all of our clinical schedules to one degree or another. But when you can really try and prioritize getting that time off, so then you can intentionally choose where you want to use it.
So first you’ve taken time off. You’ve invested it over time, but then number two, there needs to be intentionality with that time. What are you gonna do with it? So for me, growing up, we were within driving distance of my grandparents and a few times a year, especially big holidays.
We’d go spend time with them. I have a lot of good memories together with my family, with my grandparents and that intentionality by my parents now means that family has been a priority for me and my wife too. It took intentionality for me in dating my wife with before getting married and now planning dates and time together, being proactive, planning things for our family and things that would create bonding and those memories, it may not necessarily even be about the quantity of time or even the money that’s involved, but it’s about the thoughtfulness often in advance that shows the care needed to build connection in the family or with others in the community. It could be spontaneous flowers for your significant other, a note in the mail to a sibling, a phone call to a parent or a text to colleague on the anniversary of them losing a loved one.
Again, these things will be unique to you, but using intentionality and time over time to invest in family, these can all support wellness, but beyond those first two things.
The third thing about investing in family is that it requires an external focus. This is similar to intentionality, but it goes further, maybe sending a car to a family member that might be difficult, and maybe you’re not even ready to do that. It’s making that move towards others, not just inward. Some of my favorite memories with my family growing up and even now with my wife and daughter have involved helping others, whether it’s service projects or maybe even helping watch my daughter, so my wife can deliver a meal to a friend who just had surgery to baby, something else that’s going on. It helps build connection within my family by helping others.
So investing in family with time intentionality and an external focus, I want you to take a moment and consider a family context that you are a part of where you want to apply this, whether it’s your biological family or work community or something else.
Now you’ve got that family context in your mind. Good. I want you to imagine what it would look like. If you focused on one of these areas, time, intentionality or external focus, say over the next month, how would you feel? What thoughts or actions would you have in mind? How would your life be richer, your wellness stronger as you poured into these things with that time intentionality and external focus, maybe you have a family member in medicine. How could this help you connect with them to understand their needs and the craziness of life wherever you’re at. Take that next step today.
Thank you so much for joining me here on episode 26 of the MedEdWell podcast, please subscribe, share this episode and leave a review. You wherever you listen to this podcast, it really helps get the word out. I really want to be able to help others with their wellness medicine. Make sure if you are looking for advice or input on your student loans to book a consult, check out the link in the show notes, studentloanadvice.com/mew. Thanks again for all that you do, please come back and join me on the next episode. Have a great day.