• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

PracticeBalance

Pursuing simplicity in work, home, community, and self

Header Right

Follow Me Here

  • About
  • Blog
  • Work
  • Home
  • Community
  • Self
  • Contact
  • About
  • Blog
  • Work
  • Home
  • Community
  • Self
  • Contact

A Balanced Interview #2: Eliza

Source - minimalMD.com

January 15, 2019 //  by PracticeBalance//  Leave a Comment

Note: You may have noticed that the blog has been unreachable for a number of days. More on that later, but I’m happy to say it’s been restored! Here is my first post-apocalypse article. Enjoy!

Source – minimalMD.com

Our next interview is with my friend and fellow blogger Eliza, the Minimal MD. She has a compelling story of burnout and early retirement from medicine, but she’s now back to working very part-time, “balancing” a practice of dermatology with travel and family.

In a few sentences, tell us about yourself (age, job, family, hometown, etc.)

 I’m a 36 year old MD who lives in the Midwest with her husband and two elementary aged children. 

What is one thing you’re passionate about (a thing you’re loving, something you would still do even if no one paid you/even if you have limited time, or a hobby you really care about)?

Travel.  I recently returned from a trip to Amsterdam with my kids.  The experience of walking through Anne Frank’s house, reflecting on the art of Van Gogh, and sleeping on a houseboat on a historic canal was the highlight of my month.

I’m also pretty passionate about minimalism.  Over the years, I have selected the physical things and activities that bring joy to my life while cutting back on everything else. 

What does balance mean to you (how do you find balance between work, home, community, and self?

Balance means being honest about what your needs are during a particular phase of your life and adjusting to meet those needs.  When I was a third year med student, I spent 100+ hours a week at the hospital and loved it.  I was just relieved to be done with Step 1of the USMLE.  After residency, balance was working 2-3 days a week to allow me to pay my student loans while also spending time with my kids. I pay attention to what I love about my current phase of life and what I want to change and constantly adjust.

Have you experienced any tradeoffs in your practice of balance?

Yes. When I retired from my 3 day a week clinical practice in 2017, I realized after a few months that I missed the peer interaction, especially after months on end of traveling alone with my kids.  I’ve decided that working one clinic day a week lets me really enjoy the practice of medicine without allowing it to overshadow other aspects of my life or become a source of stress.

Describe your perfect “average” day. (How does your everyday day flow if everything goes well)?

I approach it more on a monthly basis, traveling one week a month to experience the new and exciting, and using the other 3 weeks to enjoy the comforts of home.  During my weeks at home, I spend 6 days focusing on the needs of myself and my family and one day as a “working mom.”  That day allows me to connect to colleagues, diagnose, treat, cure the occasional cancer.  Then I come home to a clean house and home cooked meal.  The contrast of travel and home, work and relaxation, makes my life fuller.

What are your go-to tools for self-care?

My bed-good sleep restores my soul.  Also a big pot of tea and long phone conversation with an old friend.

What is one morning routine you do that keeps you grounded and happy?

I am really happy to have eliminated caffeine from my life.  I wake up refreshed from a full night’s sleep and excited about the day I have planned. 

Any decisions you’ve made that have negatively impacted your balance? If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?

While I would absolutely do it again, I will reflect that becoming pregnant 3 weeks into my intern year at Yale was pretty rough.  I took only four “sick” days when I had the baby because the program made residents stay and pay back any maternity leave, and I didn’t want to go late to my derm program.

What is one habit, tool, or item you’ve brought into your life within the last 6 months that has helped with your practice of balance?

Intentional connection to peers.  I traveled so much after I left my job in the summer of 2017 that it was hard to make friends in my new location.  These past few months, I have made a consistent effort to reconnect with good friends, spend social time alone with my husband, reach out to like minded people through my blog, and have interaction with new colleagues.

How can people contact you if they want to know more?

I blog at MinimalMD.com and can be found via my facebook page: Minimal MD.

My takeaways from this interview:

Balance not only means different things to different people, it can look different at various points in your life. Also, “work-life balance” is often a sliding point somewhere in the middle of working too much and too little; Eliza realized that a complete retirement from her career in medicine wasn’t giving her the balance she needed, so she added clinical work back into her life.

Eliza is a woman of few but deliberate words. She’s well aware that making more and having more are not necessarily linked to her happiness; she chooses a simple lifestyle with her family even though she has great earning potential as a dermatologist.

Category: UncategorizedTag: balanced interview, minimalism, simplicity

Previous Post: « 2018 In Review
Next Post: Disaster Preparedness and a Disappearing Blog »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

 

Dawn L. Baker MD, MS is the founder of PracticeBalance. She became interested in writing about wellness as a lover of language and  outdoor athlete who experienced a major health crisis during residency training. Dawn is dedicated to discussing current practices of self-care and simplicity in the four realms of balance: Work, Home, Community, and Self. She is a speaker and author who has been featured in national syndicates such as KevinMD and Medpage Today. A wife and mother to one daughter and one whippet dog, Dawn also enjoys slow travel, rock climbing, strength and conditioning exercise, attempts at practicing yoga, and long walks with her family.

PB on Instagram

#gratituesday thoughts: time that used to be “just me” is now often “me and her”. Some days it’s like I don’t remember the time before her...
.
Top photo: Kalymnos, Greece
Bottom photo: St John, USVI
Take time to smell the roses
.
.
.
#practicebalance #purejoy #aspenjoy #growingaspen #lessonsfrommydaughter #stillness #holidaybustle #slowdown #slowliving #slowparenting #mamabloggers #somedocs #doctormom #toddlermomlife #freerangeparenting #freerangekids
MY TRIGGERS: what gets the prickles to come out on my skin, the hackles to stand up on my back?
.
I’ve found that I need to identify things that set me off and remind myself, so as to hopefully prevent an emotional explosion at times 🤯
.
Like if I’m hovering in a trigger area, I need to take special care and be aware 👁
.
Mine are related to feeling like a half-ass, being controlled or being indecisive. What are yours?
Dear Aspen - I think back to the times before you were here, and I can’t believe it’s only been 4 years since you came into our lives and made them so much richer. Happy 4th birthday! 🎉
“Island time is a thing... So who’s got it wrong? Maybe I’m the impatient jerk.” .
New blog post today about my experience working as a locum tenens (fill-in) doctor in the US Virgin Islands. .
It wasn’t all coconuts and gardenias, but it was a good learning experience. One I was looking to have during my #sabbatical... Read about it thru the link in my profile or below.
.
https://practicebalance.com/2019/11/locum-tenens-anesthesiology-in-the-virgin-islands/
When’s the last time you needed lots of help to do something others take for granted?
.
#growingaspen not only had her first roller skating experience today, but she also got a taste of what it feels like to be a true beginner amongst experts.
.
When you do something new and you’re just around strangers, it’s not that big of a deal... but when you do that new thing around your friends, who happen to have an ex-hockey player daddy and have been skating on in-lines since age 2, that’s a different story.
.
I’m a recovering perfectionist, always afraid to fail. I don’t want that for her.
.
She handled it so well. A few quick tears were shed - over butt bruises though, not jealousy or frustration. She used this helper contraption without embarrassment. She took input from others with grace and tried her hardest. All I could ever ask for 🥰🙏.
“It reminded me again that I need to take care of myself.... She might be my teacher, but I’m her foundation.”
.
New blog post up today about our awesome beach and snorkeling experience  in the US Virgin Islands. Learning through your child’s eyes is the most amazing experience. It enhances EVERYTHING. .
Check the #latestpost link in my profile, or below:
. 
https://practicebalance.com/2019/11/learning-through-snorkeling/
Back to #desertlife, #nofilter. November in the desert is truly beautiful. Generally, the skies are blue and clear, temperatures are 70s over 50s, and the air just feels... perfect.
.
.
.

#practicebalance #sabbatical2019 #homeiswhereyouare #worklifebalance #wellnessbloggers #physicianbloggers #mamabloggers #womenbloggers #SoMeDocs #parttimedoctor #fulltimemama #mamadoc #womeninmedicine #womeninanesthesia  #mothersinmedicine #stressmanagement #selfknowledge #selfcare #selfreflection #pursuingsimplicity #workhomecommunityself #thesimplelife #slowliving #IGetTo
We could be trying to fit in all of the adventures, and that’s exactly what we used to do when we traveled: bringing (or renting) all the gear, getting as many pitches in as possible before sundown, taking the lessons... but instead, lots of days look like this.
.
It takes so little for a toddler to be entertained, and it’s both a lesson in stillness and a joy to watch as it happens.
.
.
.
.
#practicebalance  #worklifebalance #wellnessbloggers #mamabloggers #SoMeDocs #fulltimemama #mamadoc #womeninmedicine #mothersinmedicine #stressmanagement #selfknowledge #selfcare #selfreflection #pursuingsimplicity #slowtravel #stillness #toddlermomlife #workhomecommunityself #thesimplelife #slowliving #IGetTo
Some mornings the beauty of this island is rivaled in vastness by the amount of work to do at the hospital.
.
.
.
.
#saintthomas #usvirginislands #challengeyourself #getoutofyourcomfortzone #safarianesthesia #sabbatical2019 #practicebalance #womeninmedicine #womeninanesthesia

Disclaimers

  1. The content on this site is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice.
  2. The opinions and information on this site are my own and are not those of my employer.

Copyright © 2019 PracticeBalance · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Mai Theme