A busy time has passed!

Greetings,

I hope you all are doing well. It has been sometime since I had a chance to write. In fact I am dictating this on my iPhone. Hopefully it will make sense!

Since I last wrote, I have been very busy. The Bella Coola and Bella Bella visits have come and gone and were a great success! I enjoyed the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress in Vancouver at the end of October. It was a good meeting, with some useful updates, and a chance to see old friends from across the country. There’s a lot of new things coming in cardiology.

For example, there will be new anticoagulants for atrial fibrillation available shortly. There are more drugs coming to alter cholesterol levels and better options for controlling diabetes. Less invasive options for procedures previously requiring open-heart surgery are also expanding.

This is one of the greatest things about being a doctor and working in cardiology. There is a wealth of new data and information. This does offer the chance to improve patient care substantially. However, it requires a lot of investment of my personal time, to review it all and make sense of it. This is very interesting, but also a lot of work, and I have the same 24 hours in a day that everybody else has. Balance is required is to do your best to be a good professional, and still preserve time for your family.

I struggle with the same work-life balance of everyone else struggles with. I’m also doing my best to get enough exercise and have recently begun playing indoor soccer. It is a great activity with an excellent cardiovascular workout. I’ve been playing for a couple months, and I have noticed my fitness has improved markedly. However there are some days that it is difficult to get to – I play late at night so I can see the family before heading out. Today for example, I finished hospital rounds very late, and then had a late dinner because I was late coming home. I also want to see my family! Therefore I had to skip soccer today. Hopefully next week I will have better luck. Most weeks I do make it.

Work life balance is certainly not only a problem for doctors or cardiologists. I do think those of us in medicine have a particularly bad version of this problem. The work required, beyond simply treating patients, to maintain your knowledge and to administer your practice is considerable. But many other people face this issue as well. There are many busy jobs and careers!

I’m wondering if any of you deal with the same issue. I would be interested if you have any tips? Please leave me a comment and let me know. I will try to write more frequently in the future and hope that this blog is interesting for you!

Until next time,

John.

A little trip.

Twitter and CME

John Vyselaar