Work–Life Balance: A Different Scale for Doctors

THE RESiDEnT pERSpECTiVE " Hey, do you want to hang out this weekend? " " Ummm … let me see if I'm on call … " This is a conversation every resident goes through almost every month of their training. Despite work hour regulations, overnight calls and weekend calls define and shape our life. Every family event, birthday, and anniversary has to be adjusted around the work schedule. Weekends are traditionally seen as family time. Not so much during residency. At the start of residency, every intern is promised that with work hour regulations now in effect (1), more time can be spent at home with family. Little do they realize that they make up for the reduced duty hours by working more weekends. Even with compensatory time, family time is unlikely to be recovered (2). I got married just before starting my residency. At the time, I did not realize how much the residency would come in the way of my personal life. However, on my days off, I found myself catching up on lost sleep and regaining the strength to survive another day. Just like most other chronically sleep-deprived residents (3), even when I woke up, I was grumpy and irritable (4). Let us just say my wife was not amused. Starting the second year of residency was a scary thought not just in terms of increased responsibility , but also because it posed the physical challenge of working for 24 h straight. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) encourages residents to take a " strategic nap " during these shifts, which made me think it should not be as bad as I thought. And it was not. A 60–90-min nap seemed sufficient to keep me going for 24 h. However, during my pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) rotation, the same strategy did not work. " Strategic naps " were now only 10 min cat naps on a chair. Like with any ICU rotation, there were highs and lows. Although it was a roller-coaster ride, I thoroughly enjoyed the rotation. The challenge of taking care of the sickest children in the hospital and the immediate gratification of curing someone kept me going. While I was engrossed in the sustained chaos in the ICU, I was disconnected from the outside world. For those 4 weeks, I was solely driven by my passion to take care of acutely …