Show Notes

Description

Dr Jeffrey Caterino visits the studio as we consider work-life balance in academic medicine. When work and life fall out of harmony, we experience burnout, job dissatisfaction, and loss of meaningful productivity. However, balance can be restored… tune in to discover how!

Topics

Work-Life Balance
Job Satisfaction
Burnout
Meaningful Productivity

Guest

Dr Jeffrey Caterino
Chair of Emergency Medicine
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center 

Links

Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement
On the Road to Achieving Work-Life Balance in Academia
Work-Life Balance in Academic Medicine: Narratives of Physician-Researchers and Their Mentors
Academic Medicine Faculty Perceptions of Work-Life Balance Before and Since the COVID-19 Pandemic

Episode Transcript

[Dr Mike Patrick]
This episode of FAMEcast is brought to you by the Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Hello, everyone, and welcome once again to FAMEcast. We are a faculty development podcast from The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and in particular, their FAME program.

I want to welcome all of you. It is episode three, and we are calling this one Work-Life Harmony in Academic Medicine. I want to welcome all of you to the program.

We have an important topic for you this week as we explore work-life harmony in academic medicine. This is more widely known as work-life balance, but a while back, someone told me, it’s really work-life harmony because things are not always in balance. Sometimes work obligations take more time, and sometimes life obligations throw balance out the window.

When we take a step back and look at the big picture over the course of several months or even a year, we do want to see harmony. We want to see work and life working together rather than out competing each other for our attention. This is particularly important in academic medicine as we are pulled in so many directions.

We’re responsible for clinical care, teaching, research, other activities, administration roles, maintaining connections with colleagues both locally and nationally, and it really can become overwhelming pretty fast. When work takes over our lives, it leads to burnout, decreased job satisfaction, loss of meaningful productivity, especially when we get mired down in busy work. It is important to balance out work and life or at least return them to a reasonable harmony, but what are best practices for doing that?

Well, in our usual fame-cast fashion, we have a terrific guest joining us who is passionate about academic physicians maintaining work-life balance, and he has some practical tips for accomplishing this. Our guest is Dr. Jeffrey Caterino. He is chair of emergency medicine at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Before we get to him, I do have a couple reminders for you. If your institution or department requires faculty development education credit, also known as FD-ED, we have good news for you. Select fame-cast episodes, ones that deal with teaching and learners, come with absolutely free FD-ED credit from the Center for Faculty Development at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Really easy to claim credit. Simply listen to the podcast, look for the FD-ED link in the show notes at famecast.org, follow that link to Cloud CME, register or sign in with your free account, take a brief survey, which is located in the materials tab, and score the credit. You can even download a transcript of your credits to share with your institution or department.

Episodes so far with FD-ED credit, that would be FAMEcast number one, mentoring and coaching in academic medicine, but we do plan to have many more to come down the road. So, check that out. This one, I do want to point out, this one is not a teaching topic, so we do not offer that FD-ED credit for this particular episode.

I also want to remind you the information presented in FAMEcast is for general educational purposes only. Your use of this audio program is subject to the FAMEcast terms of use agreement, which you can find at famecast.org. So, let’s take a quick break.

We’ll get Dr. Jeffrey Caterino settled into the studio, and then we will be back to talk about work-life harmony. It’s coming up right after this. Dr. Jeffrey Caterino is chair of emergency medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, and a professor of emergency medicine and internal medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He has a passion for mentoring and coaching his colleagues on strategies for improving work-life balance, which is an important thing for preventing burnout, optimizing productivity, improving job satisfaction, and strengthening our mental health. Before we dive into our topic, let’s offer a warm FAMEcast welcome to our guest, Dr. Jeffrey Caterino. Thank you so much for being here today.

My pleasure. Looking forward to it. Yes, I’m looking forward to this conversation as well, because we all need work-life balance.

Why is it important as we think about academic medicine? Because there are just so many things. It’s almost like a kid in a candy store.

There’s so much that you can do in academic medicine, but it’s also important to choose our work activities wisely. Why exactly is that?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
I think you said it exactly correctly. There are so many things to do. And interestingly, I think the more talented the faculty member, the more they’re asked to do, or the more opportunities they have.

And you can rapidly become overwhelmed. Most people in academic medicine are high achievers, and they want to please their boss. They want to please the system that is asking them to do things.

And really finding what’s most important, what’s most meaningful, both for yourself and for the hospital or the department you’re working for, is a challenge, and it’s a skill. And if you can do that well, you can really navigate the academic waters. And I think people need to remember, many of us have gone through college and then medical school and then residency, and each of those were time-limited things.

And we were trying to do things to impress so that we could get to the next level. And as you become a faculty member, you have to transition your mindset a little bit. You have to transition to the fact that now this is your career for the next 20 or 30 years.

And it turns from a sprint to a marathon. You don’t have to get everything done and onto your CV in the next six months to impress the next person who needs you. And if you can kind of make that transition to a pace that is still meaningful and impactful, but it also allows you to ensure longevity, I think that’s one of the main tricks and main strategies to use.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
As we’re presented with many different opportunities, how can we best figure out which ones are worth pursuing and which ones we should probably put to the side? Yeah.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
So, you have all these opportunities, chances, ideas, and there’s a couple different strategies I counsel people to use. One is based off, I’ve got young kids and the movie Despicable Me with the minions, one of the villains is Vector. He’s the guy in the movie because he commits crimes with magnitude and direction.

And I like to tell that to my faculty, you should do things that both have magnitude and direction. You should do important things, but you should also do things that have a pathway forward that you can build on as you go through your career. And doing things with magnitude or purpose, there’s lots of different frames you can look at that, all equally valid, but thinking about why you should do it.

So sometimes you do things because they fill a passion area, or they are part of where you want your career to go. Sometimes you do things because they help you develop a skill that you’re going to need further on in your career that you’ll be able to make use of. Sometimes it is to meet a group of people or a mentor or a person that, again, will be someone that you want to work with, someone that you can see yourself emulating, following in their footsteps, whatever it might be, kind of creating the connections that sustain all of us as part of our academic career.

And a lot of times it’s groundwork for future advancement. So, finding things that are important to you, broadly defined, and also are important to your department, your institution, that combination is what’s really most successful. And that starts to narrow down the universe of things that you should, or you can or ought to do.

And it is one frame to look at it. And I caution people. You talk about doing things that help your career.

I don’t see this as selfish. I see it as sustaining. We all give.

We all do things that help others, that, again, help departments. And some things are thankless and just need to be done. But as a talented faculty member, particularly a young faculty member, there are a lot of things you can do.

And so, if it’s impactful, the fact that you steer to something in your area, I don’t think is selfish. I think it’s important and career-sustaining and burnout-preventing.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, absolutely. Now, if we’re evaluating opportunities and figuring out which ones are worth pursuing, that means we’re saying yes to some opportunities and we’re saying no to other ones. So how can we say no effectively, especially when it’s our boss or our institution that may be asking us to do those things?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Yeah, this is a trick and a skill that you have to be careful with. And a couple different things about this. You do want to be careful about saying no to your boss too much.

And one thing, particularly if your boss sees that as they’re offering you an opportunity. As a department chair, there are people I offer opportunities to. And eventually, if they keep saying no, I kind of move on to someone else.

So, I do a couple different things. Again, much harder as a junior faculty, but even as a department chair, the dean asked me if I wanted to do something and I really had to explore if that was the right next move, the right thing for me to do because there was a significant time commitment. So, one thing I do is I go to that leader, that person, that boss, and start by asking for advice.

What would you do? How would you manage this? Et cetera.

And sometimes you can steer that conversation to them realizing, oh, this is not the right time for you. So, it’s not a blanket no to start. It’s a, hey, I appreciate the offer.

I’d like to explore this with you. Even on the back of your mind, you’re thinking, I don’t think this is right for me right now. Sometimes it is a not right now.

It’s not no, but it’s a not right now. And really the other thing I really like to do with my junior faculty is tell them that I can say no for them. If they’re a researcher or an educator who, you know, someone else is asking for them to do something very powerful for that person to set for you to say, I’m not sure if, you know, if I can do this, if I have the bandwidth to do this, let me go talk to my mentor, my boss, and then to be able to go back and say, my department chair said, I’m not allowed to do this.

I will take that on as the chair or, you know, the, the mentor, my mentor said, I shouldn’t do this. And here’s the reasons. And so, to provide yourself a little bit of cover.

But I think if you, if you examine things through the lens that I talked about, about that magnitude and direction, I think you’ll be able to navigate these waters and you’ll be able to explain why you’re saying no. And appropriately with some cover or some advice as well.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
So there really is an element of relationship management, which is part of emotional intelligence in saying no. And, you know, I love the fact that, that it can lead to a conversation because the person who’s offering it might be able to say, well, here’s how I think that that activity could fit into your professional mission. And maybe it’s in a way that you hadn’t thought of, because as you mentioned, there are opportunities that lead to other opportunities or training that can get you in the right direction.

And it might take looking at it from a different lens to see how that activity may be helpful. But having those conversations with the person asking and with your division chief can go a long way to, uh, to helping you figure out if that’s something you should say no to and, and how to say it.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Yeah, I think, I think you’re right. And I think, you know, again, a personal experience recently of a, of a chair with a Dean to having that, that sort of conversation with the Dean. And, and we, we came to the conclusion because I was honored to be asked to do this particular job.

And, you know, that this was not the right time for me that, but a few years from now, very well, Mikey, and we were able to show that, you know, I was thoughtful about it and interested in it and grateful for the, for the opportunity or the offer while at the same time, you know, exploring, is it, is it the right thing? And that’s a very different conversation. And it leaves a very different taste in a leader’s mouth, I think, as compared to, oh, I’m just too busy to do that.

Um, that, that, that sort of shorthand, which might be your initial reaction, I think maybe, maybe right, but, but kind of having the emotional intelligence, as you said, to, to expand on it a little bit. So, so the leader feels good about it. If the person who asked you feels good about it as well, it is, is the trick.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, as we decide what things to say yes to, they can begin to stack up and, and maybe they are all really helping us move in the right direction for our individual career.

So, then what are some practical strategies for managing our time effectively so we can be juggling several things at once? Yeah.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
If you figure some out, you can please let me know as well. You know, I think a couple of things as you go through these various courses, you, you go to leadership courses and things like that, and people talk about it and everybody’s got their, their little tricks of the trade that, that worked for them. I’m, I’m a big believer in, in probably three things.

The first is to, is to the best possible touch things once we all kind of look at our email off and on, right? I’m sitting with my kid on the couch. I look at my email and I know I’m not going to respond to anything at that point.

I’m, you know, doing a puzzle or who knows what, but I look at it and it distracts me. And then that weighs on me, which is just an extra thing that I can’t do anything about right there. I think the most effective people block time, you know, some of the, the, the, and I don’t do this well enough, but some of the best leaders I know say, I look at my email from, you know, eight to nine and four to five every day.

And I don’t look at it in between unless I need to send something I’m working on my science or what have you. And, and I know everybody has different schedules and that may or may not work but really blocking time. So, you can read something, respond to it, and then move on.

And knowing occasionally, yes, there’s a bigger issue that you’re going to have to then go and say, I have an hour to do facts. The other thing I think is it, and what that does is by, by touching something, responding to it and moving on, it helps you cognitively unload. One of the, I think the un unseen taxes that we put on ourselves is that we don’t just resolve things and move on.

And all this builds up in our brain and weighs on us. And we, you know, it’s just there and whether difficult or easy finishing it and sending that email or, you know, making the decision is, is critically important. And as you move, move up in the ranks and have to make more and more decisions doing that just keeps you from getting bogged down and, and, you know, burning out.

And when I became department chair five years ago, I’m still shocked by the, called the velocity of decision-making, just the sheer number of, of everything from highly significant to very minor decisions that have to be made every day. And if you just don’t do it, see it, do it and move on, you get overwhelmed. And a part of that though, is then realizing that you’re going to make some wrong decisions, being humble enough to be willing to re-examine something.

If somebody comes back to you and sometimes, you know, you change your mind and sometimes you don’t. So, I think those are, those are some of the, the, the big things. I think the other thing is that at some point, you cannot add anything more.

You can replace things. Academic faculty that comes about four years in a lot of times, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but there is at a point where you are a capacity. And if something cool comes up or interesting, or, you know, again, fits your passion area or your career development, great, do it, but examine what you need to take away, what you no longer absolutely need to do.

And, and that mindset, when somebody said that to me 15 years ago, that has helped me a ton because I don’t really anymore. I really, if I’m adding something, I try to take something away and then give it to someone else.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Very important. You mentioned cognitive unloading techniques.

What exactly are these?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Yeah. So, I, I, to me, I, and I don’t know what the, uh, the technical term is, but I just got to get whatever it is out of my brain so I can move on to the next thing. You know, between work life and everything else, you’ve got to, you know, your, your significant other, your kids, your, your parents, whatever it may be, you’ve got a million things on your brain.

And the more you can cross something off the list and move on, I think the better, just the better off you are. And sometimes that’s appropriately delegating things. And I think we’ll talk about that in a bit, but sometimes it’s just finishing it.

And that, that combination can, can really help you not feel so burnt out.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. You know, for me, I love using a to-do list kind of app and I will have sort of my to-do list for the day. And oftentimes I don’t get to all of it.

And so, I’ll move a couple of items, you know, to the next Monday. And then as I approach the new week, then kind of spread things out. But I think having that task list someplace that’s not in my brain that I can refer to just makes me feel less stressed, like less likely that I’m going to miss something.

And then that allows me to, to sort of pick and choose what I’m going to work on a given day, you know, what can be put off and what needs to be done now. But the things that I put off, I’m still going to remember because they just move farther down on my list and they’re going to be in front of my eyes again at some point. But I know that there’s all sorts of techniques.

Like that’s just one that I use, but there’s, there’s lots of apps out there too, to help reduce mental clutter.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Yeah. And I think you have to find what works for you. I use a combination.

I have an electronic list on OneNote. That is my more long-term stuff. I can’t forget, you know, I’ve got to make sure something happens at some point.

And then I have my day-to-day on a white, on a white legal pad, basically that I scribble on and have great satisfaction in crossing things off. And on the left side is work and on the right side tends to be life stuff. Like, you know, register my kid for the ACT or whatever, but you’re right.

We can’t, we can’t hold it in our brain, and you have to find out what works for you. And that also goes, you pull into family. So, like I mentioned, I’ve got three children from high school down to first grade.

And basically, you know, I coach travel baseball, and we have activities. And so, my wife knows if she needs me somewhere, she actually sends me an appointment for everything from, I am going out, you know, this weekend, this Saturday night with the ladies. So, you have to be at home with the kids.

I get an appointment on my calendar and then I don’t have to remember it. And I frequently do that in meetings or someone says to me, I’m on a call and they’re like, you know, hey, I need this done. Can you please send me an email?

So that once it’s in my email, I can then transition it to my list. I don’t rely on myself to remember anything because it’s just, it’s too much pressure on our brains. We’re also taking care of patients, doing all our academic duties, et cetera.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
I’m hoping that my wife does not listen to this because I don’t want her to get the idea, she can make appointments that, that might go badly, but it goes well.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Great idea. Yeah, I will say, and I think we were talking about the lyrical life balance, but we also have my calendar have dates, right? You put; we’re going to have breakfast this Friday morning because I have a late start.

So, we actually found with, with a busy family, it’s easier and a busy academic career and you know, everything she’s doing, it’s easier to put it on the calendar and it’s much more likely to happen. Yeah.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
That makes sense. We talked a little bit about provocation, that being one way that you can sort of cognitively unload. That also takes emotional intelligence and there’s a skill in delegating effectively because you don’t want people to, you know, you don’t want to come across as being lazy and I just want someone else to do all my work.

So how can we improve our ability to, to delegate? Yes.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
A lot of it is trust. And a lot of us got where we are in medicine and academic faculty by doing the work and being responsible for the work and finding who you can trust. And again, this is as you become in leadership positions, but it also at home and other things as well, finding who you can trust is important and then giving them the autonomy.

My approach is to give them the autonomy to get the task done. It’s the old leadership of thing, tell them what needs to be done, not how to do it. And so, it becomes a not micromanaging them because then you’ve just doubled your work.

You’re doing all the work plus try to manage someone. And that is hard, and you need to take a step, kind of take a step back. And what I always say is if someone does what I want 75 or 80% of the way I would have done it, then I am very happy.

If I can’t, they’re not going to do it exactly how I would do it. If I want that, if it’s something I think needs to be done exactly, I need to do it myself. So, you have to let go a little bit of that, of what you think is perfect.

And again, be humble enough to know that there’s more than one way to do things as long as we get to the goal that we’re looking for. And so, if you’re able to do that, again, particularly as you start to obtain some leadership positions in your academic career, I mean, this includes if you’re on a committee, if you’re on with a national organization or the institution or whatever it might be, you need to be able to do that. And there are lots of techniques as you learn to manage people about ensuring accountability and ensuring, setting, what’s our deadline?

Is that good with you? That becomes its own skillset that I think we all learn as we progress in our academic career, but really important to do and to not try to do everything yourself. And that goes for home too.

You might not be able to cut the grass. You might, you need someone to clean the house. I don’t know, whatever the tasks are, even if it’s something you enjoy, sometimes again, this gets to the replacing, right?

You find things that can be done that you don’t need to do are, are important to give you time to do the things that you want to do. So, so it is broadly defined.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, for sure. As we think about the phrase commit to life, how can academic professionals implement this concept?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Yeah. A couple of things that I’m not saying, I certainly don’t do this a hundred percent. Number one is I think, put down the phone intermittently.

I am able to at night, just put it on the charger and walk away. It’s very difficult for me, right? We’re all very attached.

And unfortunately, now, if you’re on your phone, you’re on your email. You just don’t, you know, but I, I, I tell a lot of my junior faculty that you’re not that important. No one needs to talk to you tonight.

It’s okay. You know, there’s a few people that are, that, you know, are on call or, you know, what, what have you, but for the vast majority of us, you know, you’re just not, it’s okay. It can, anything that anybody needs can wait till tomorrow.

And that becomes important and critical. I think you need to schedule things. And I already mentioned, you know, I, I schedule dates and whether, and find the things that you like, or that are your passion, whether, you know, internally with family, with friends and really putting them on the schedule.

I personally think helps a ton, but, but taking the time to do those hobbies, do the stuff that, that that’s important. Like I mentioned, I, you know, I, I, I’m able to coach two different baseball teams from two of my kids. And that takes some schedule, you know, schedule jockeying, and I can’t always be there, but I can be there frequently.

And, and that’s important. I had a, a mentor once tell me they take a vacation every three months. They go four times a year.

And sometimes it’s three or four days. But, but again, that’s part of the schedule at the time, right? Long weekend, what have you, a couple longer vacations, however it works in your life, that time truly away is important.

And we’ve now seen that there’ve been at least one very good paper on burnout, that when you’re on vacation, be on vacation, that if you work more than 30 minutes a day on vacation, you, you are much more likely to burn out. So, if you’re on vacation, again, 90% of 90% of folks are not important enough that they need to be doing two hours of work a day when they’re on vacation, then it’s just not vacation. Right.

And, and, and I try to do that. I try to go and, you know, we’ll be gone for five or six days, and I might check my email twice, you know, two mornings, I’ll spend 30 minutes or four, just to make sure there’s nothing that as a department chair, I need to sign or things like that. Knowing if somebody really needs something to text me.

But I think too many of us go on vacation and are sitting there doing work. And I don’t, I don’t think that’s rejuvenating.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Though the big vacation away. And I love that idea of, of once a quarter. I mean, that really does seem to, at least for my life, that would also be sort of a nice rhythm to get into, but everyone’s going to be a little different.

You may want to take a couple of weeks twice a year, but it’s also important outside of even vacation, just to really maintain those interests outside of work. Right. I mean, those are almost like little mini vacations.

How can we make sure that we’re continuing to do things in our life that we enjoy like, like hobbies and such when we have so many things on our plate?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Yeah, I think, I think it’s difficult. And I do to me, if, if you find you’re not doing it as much as you like, I think you, you schedule it, like you schedule a meeting. I’m going to on Friday at four o’clock, I’m going to go and do wood down to my wood shop for two hours and do woodworking from four to six.

And it’s on there and no one’s going to schedule me, you know, I’m going to stop my research writing and go do that. And that takes the unknown out of it. And it takes the, you know, we all stop what we’re doing to go to a meeting, right?

If the department chair says, I’m going to meet with you at four o’clock on Friday, you would stop what you’re doing and go do it. I think the same, you take the same tack to that, those hobbies, you know, go at four, unless I need to meet with you on vacation, you need to meet with me and not go to go do wood location. I’m kidding.

But, you know, that, that has been a personal thing that’s helped me truly, you know, be able to continue doing things.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. You know, when in your world, things are counted as the number of shifts that you may do in a month and in emergency medicine, because I’m in that world on the pediatric side, it really does make a difference. And sometimes even the difference between a couple shifts a month feels different.

And that may be, that may be hard for some folks who aren’t in medicine to understand, like it’s just two, two days a month, but it really can feel different. And so, some of us may be inclined to reduce our FTE or our full time equivalent to get the shifts down a little bit. Is that something that you advise if folks come and ask you about it?

Is that, is that something that you’re receptive to?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
I do. And I would say 10 or 15% of my faculty are doing that. They are just decreasing their effort from a full time to a 90% or an 85 or an 80%.

And in certain specialties, it’s easier than others, right? And we understand this. The shift-based specialties are probably the easiest, but we know, I think a lot of primary care physicians, you know, work parts or some work part schedules.

And I completely agree with what you’re saying. It can make a huge difference. And I’ve had some faculty who I think were burnt out and that’s saving.

You know, it really, really is. And I fully support that. We, you know, I think we’re so used to being the 110 percenters through college med school residency, right?

That it takes a little time for people to realize that, no, it’s okay. It’s okay to work two less days a month. And because then you’re fresher when you’re there, you enjoy yourself more when you’re there at work.

You’re probably more effective, you know, better patient satisfaction, all the things I like as a department chair, but you’re just less burnt out. And if you’re feeling that, I think it’s certainly worth the discussion. And we do that a lot in your item.

It’s easy in emergency medicine, relatively easy compared to some other specialties, but we certainly support that.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Now, for others, that may be a difficult conversation because maybe there’s a shortage of physicians in a particular division, and then that’s going to, you know, seemingly make it more difficult for everyone else. When there are difficult conversations with your leader, how do you suggest handling that? I guess it’s good to sort of have a good relationship to begin with if you’re going to talk about something difficult.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
I think, you know, for this particular type of conversation, lead time is important. You know, if you say, well, next week I want to cut half my shifts, that becomes difficult. Everybody has to pick up the slack.

If you do it, every specialty has a slightly different sort of recruiting calendar. And so, understanding that’s important. And if you, you know, came to me in the fall and said, hey, you know, I need to cut back a little bit, it’s much easier for me to incorporate that into my recruiting plans and et cetera.

So, giving the chair some time is important. And I think that, you know, the pitch becomes one of longevity. Pitch becomes one of effectiveness when you’re there.

We all recognize that, you know, patient, when physicians are burnt out, patient satisfaction suffers, and quality suffers. And none of us want people to leave the institution because, you know, recruiting is recruiting, right? It just adds an extra level.

So, you know, if you’re a valuable member, my hope is most chairs would understand and see the value in, you know, keeping you, not just keeping you, but keeping you, you know, effective, happy, fulfilled, and would find, you know, find a way to work with you. And kind of thinking about distinguishing is, do I need something short-term? Is this long-term?

Do I just need a break? We saw this during COVID a lot where some of our faculty sort of, particularly if they had other duties, were stressed. They were taking care of, you know, elderly parents, just the stress of COVID itself.

And so, we tried to find ways to say, let’s just take a few months, go do your shifts, but let’s hold back on these other duties. We can kind of, we’ll figure out how to cover it, give you a chance to catch your breath. And most of those have come back, you know, and just with that little semi-sabbatical or whatever you’d like to call it and done really well.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
You know, it seems like it would be a good idea now and then to take a step back and think about what we’re doing in our work and what we’re doing in our life, sort of an inventory of our work-life balance. What should we consider when doing this? Like, how do we go about it?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Yeah, I think it’s a couple different ways. Some people do it better than others individually. Some need their mentor or their boss.

I definitely think at least once a year, an annual review time with your department chair is a great time to think about that as you’re going into annual review. I encourage people to reflect on the last year, you know, how did the last year feel? And it’s almost, it’s an inventory, right?

It’s a, here’s all the tasks I’ve been doing across my academic career spectrum. Do they all feel good? Do some feel better than others?

Are there too many? Is my work-life balance, right? Do I, am I always tired?

Do I feel stressed? Am I burnt out? And try to have, you know, do that, do some introspection first.

Some people, particularly junior faculty don’t know how to pull back a good mentor. And that’s where a good mentor is important. And the mentor, you know, this isn’t about mentorship but remember you can have multiple mentors for different things.

And, you know, you might have your research mentor who’s, you know, wants you submitting six grants in the next year, but you may have a different mentor among the faculty that says, you know, is this sustainable or not, right? And so maybe it’s not your primary mentor, maybe it is. And as you get that, I think, and truly do an inventory, I think it can become a bit clearer as to is the balance right or not.

And the other thing to think about is velocity. We talked a little bit about that before, but is the stuff I’m doing like, okay, I like writing these papers. Do I really need to get eight papers out in the next six months?

Or should I think about this as like, you know, a 12 to 18 months process to finish these papers? And just thinking about velocity sometimes is a load off people’s shoulders and you can almost see people relax. You know, when I, when I talk to them, great, you’ve got six ideas or data for six papers.

You’re not going to write them all in the next four months. You’re also working 14 shifts a month or, you know, whatever it may be. So, so also considering velocity of things is important.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, absolutely. And it seems like that is sort of how we tow the line between being productive and avoiding burnout, because there’s a really, I feel like there’s a fine line there. And especially if you’re a go-getter, if you really cut back, you may not feel productive.

And then that can also be an issue for our mental health. Like I’m not contributing, I want to be doing more. So, I imagine that that’s a fine line, right?

Between burnout and productivity. It really is.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
And it’s going to be different for everybody. And that’s another thing. It’s very easy to look at the faculty member next to you and see what they’re doing.

And you have to find what works for you. And to me, it’s what works for you, that’s going to sustain you over the next 10 to 20 years. Now, can I continue to do this?

And certainly, there’s going to be short bursts, right? I’ve got to get these papers done because I’m putting a grant into January and I need to pay, like, I would distinguish between sort of a short burst of activity, you know, a three to six months. I’ve got to, yes, I got to get a ton of stuff done for whatever reason, as compared to sort of the long, the long term.

I also think you should examine kind of where’s the pressure coming from? Where are you feeling the burnout coming from? Are you putting it on yourself?

Is your department chair a maniac who’s putting it on you? None of us are that, but you know, are you feeling it from your department chair? Are you feeling it from your mentor?

Are you feeling it from your significant other that you’re not doing enough at home? And where are the pressures? And, you know, and being able to examine that I think is important.

And my hope is that I probably have four or five faculty conversations a year during annual reviews of me saying, you’re doing too much. What are you going to cut? Which is a very weird position as a department chair to be in sometimes, but I can see that, you know, they’re, they feel it.

They’re like, yeah, I think you’re right usually. But going in armed with that, having done that introspective sort of inventory, I think would help helps the conversation. Yeah.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And it really goes back to the, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And when you have all that on your plate, you are sprinting. And so, you may just, you know, what’s important now and what could be important later.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
Sometimes too, as people are so, particularly again, as they get three, four, five, six years out of residency, they’re, they’ve become filled with, with, you know, the work that they’re doing, right? They’ve got all these tasks and obligations and there’s new stuff they want to do. And thinking about making the transition from I’m the, the person doing it to I’m the mentor slash sponsor.

That’s something as you are moving, you know, late assistant into associate professor that becomes powerful, meaningful, also career sustaining where you start becoming the mentor. And sometimes you have to remind people that you’re at that position. Now you should hand over this task to someone else and let them start taking it.

Well, so you can do the next thing you mentor them, you help them. And, and some of the most, you know, important, profound and career sustaining stuff I do now as a chair is doing that for the junior faculty. And that’s something that people should keep in mind as well.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. Very, very important.

As we think about faculty who may be listening to this, whether at Ohio state or beyond, you sort of know, I think when you’re struggling with work-life harmony, like there’s just this unsettled feeling and this pressure, at least that’s the way that I experience it. For folks who may be sitting in that right now, what, what is the one piece of advice that you would give them to, to, to begin to figure this out?

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
If you’re feeling it and don’t know the way out, you have to find the person who can help you do that because you’ve got these thoughts and are wondering and are not a hundred percent sure you’re wondering, am I right? Am I, am I overthinking this? Am I just not working hard enough?

Right. That self-doubt is there in all of us who’ve been high achievers. And for the first time you’re saying, oh, I need to stop this.

So, to me, the most important thing is find somebody trusted. It could be a peer. It doesn’t have to be a senior person in your department to really talk through this.

It could be someone external. Maybe you you’ve come across, you know, as part of your, your service work, you’re, you’re working on national groups or committees and really going to them and talking through it and helping them have you do this inventory, I think would be really important and helping them, helping you kind of, you know, how are you going to approach this discussion? Maybe sitting in the room with a discussion with, with a chair or a mentor as well.

So, so I think finding that mentor who can help you in the work life balance space that may or may not be the same person as your primary mentor. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. To me, that’s critical because it reinforces what you’re feeling and validates it.

And that once you’re validated, I think then you’re able to kind of move forward. And so that would be the biggest, the biggest piece of advice that I can give.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for that.

We are going to have some great links in the show notes for folks who may want to dig in a little bit deeper in all of this with some journal articles that really do, you know, give the importance to work-life balance and shows that this is really something that we all need to strive for. These will be available over at famecast.org for this episode, which is episode number three. First, we’ll have a link to the Center for Faculty Advancement Mentoring and Engagement Program at Ohio State.

Then there’s an article from the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science called On the Road to Achieving Work-Life Balance in Academia. We have another one from the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and that is Work-Life Balance in Academic Medicine Narratives of Physician Researchers and Their Mentors. And then from JAMA, we have Academic Medicine Faculty Perceptions of Work-Life Balance Before and Since the COVID-19 Pandemic.

So those links will all be in the show notes over at famecast.org. So once again, Dr. Jeffrey Caterino, Chair of Emergency Medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Thank you so much for stopping by today.

[Dr Jeffrey Caterino]
It’s been a great pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again to all of you for taking time out of your day and making FAMEcast a part of it.

Really do appreciate that. And of course, thank you to our guest this week, Dr. Jeffrey Caterino, Chair of Emergency Medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Don’t forget you can find FAMEcast wherever podcasts are found.

We’re in the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Audible, and most other podcast apps for iOS and Android. Our landing site is famecast.org. You will find our entire archive of past programs there, along with show notes for each of the episodes, our terms of use agreement, and that handy contact page if you would like to suggest a future topic for the program.

Reviews are helpful wherever you get your podcasts. We always appreciate when you share your thoughts about the show. And I do want to remind you, once again, I mentioned this in the opening, but we do offer free FD-ED credit.

So, if your institution or department requires Faculty Development Education Credit, also known as FD-ED, we have good news for you. Select FAMEcast episodes, so ones that deal with teaching and learners, come with FD-ED credit from the Center for Faculty Development at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Really easy to claim your credit.

Simply listen to the podcast, look for the FD-ED link in the show notes for that episode, follow that link to Cloud CME, register or sign into your free account, take a brief survey, it’s in the materials tab, and score the credit. You can even download a transcript of your credits to share with your institution or department. And so far, episodes with this FD-ED credit include FAMEcast number one, Mentoring and Coaching in Academic Medicine, and we have more planned in the future.

Also want to remind you, I do host a couple of other podcasts. One is PediaCast CME. It is a podcast for clinicians, so pediatric clinicians.

And that one is available for a category one CME and CE credit for physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers, and dentists. And it’s because Nationwide Children’s is jointly accredited by all of those professional organizations. We offer the credits you to fulfill your state’s continuing medical education requirements.

Shows and details are available at the landing site for that program, pediacastcme.org. You can also listen wherever podcasts are found. Simply search for PediaCast CME.

I also do a podcast for parents. That one is just called PediaCast without the CME, plain PediaCast. That is an evidence-based podcast for moms and dads.

Lots of pediatricians and other medical providers also tune in. As we cover pediatric news, answer listener questions, interview pediatric and parenting experts, shows are available at the landing site for that program, pediacast.org. Also available wherever podcasts are found.

Simply search for PediaCast. Thanks again for stopping by. And until next time, this is Dr. Mike saying stay focused, stay balanced, and keep reaching for the stars. So long, everybody.