Perspective: 

I had a run of sincere, appreciative patients today. Threw me off a bit. A transplant patient looked at our Nurse Practitioner and said “I have a heart like you; got my heart from a lady.” He had written multiple letters to the donor family, thanking them for his heart. Pretty amazing. 

Money:

Depending on your level of training, sound financial behavior can look very different. The White Coat Investor is a practicing ER doc with a large following of high income professionals. His advice on loan consolidation and refinancing provide vital, trustworthy information for students and residents. A theme pervasive in his book and many others is simply to spend below your means. This is especially difficult for residents who begin to moonlight. How can you “live like a resident” when you are already making a significantly higher salary before you even graduate? 

Balance:

A topic in which many of you were interested was “work-life balance.” We can have plenty of discussion on chasing this unicorn. If you want to be good and work and good at life, consider that you might not be great at either, at least not at the same time. Some elite individuals can be phenomenal physician scientists or dedicated, fully present stay at home parents, but from my experience it is usually a pendulum. Instead of striving for balance, I would say to strive for forgiveness. Forgive yourself when you have swung too far in one direction. Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Start now. 

Unwind:

So several people liked the coffee/wine topic. Last time was coffee, this time lets talk wine. My quick go to wine would be a Beaujolais from Trader Joe’s. But if you are willing to spend a little more, look into Dry Farm Wines. This is a company who can mail you wine (KY has strict laws based on size of company). All of their wine is Paleo, low carb, low sulfite, low alcohol, and old world style. They usually have a penny bottle with your first order. Definitely worth the splurge, but as we sample more of their wines (mostly European), I have been able to find similar bottles from local stores at a lower cost.

Book:

Right now I am reading a book called The Lessons of History, in 102 pages! This synopsis of human cultural history is full of pearls, chief among them the idea that historical trends are cyclical. Many cool observations:

“Nothing is clearer in history that the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.”

His explanation of the cycles of concentration of wealth (i.e. inequality) are fascinating. An unstable equilibrium is reached where strength of the many poor matches that of the few rich, leading to “either legislation redistributing wealth or revolution redistributing poverty.”

Another one, “internal liberty varies inversely with external danger.” True in Rome in A.D. 31 under Diocletan, as the threat of danger from outside entities increases, citizens will tolerate losing some of their civil liberties. 

Quote:
“The present is the past rolled up for action, the past is the present unrolled for understanding.”

-Will and Ariel Durant