You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Don’t just sit there, do something!”

And yet for the thoughtful, deliberate people out there like me, sometimes it’s easier to keep thinking about potential action and learning, rather than putting things into action.

Regardless of whether you consider yourself more of a thinker or a doer, check out the rest of episode 34 to hear why we all need to be doers and not just thinkers.

Check for a special announcement at the end of the episode about my own personal application of these concepts!

Then get your work done faster with 10 tips from my free PDF guide, Maximize Your Clinical Efficiency! Click to get your guide NOW!

Today’s sponsor: Pattern

If you KNOW you NEED disability insurance but either haven’t taken care of it yet or want to check your current policy against what you might qualify for, check out today’s sponsor, Pattern, at patternlife.com/mededwell.

Above are the episode show notes and below is the transcript. Some episode transcripts have been edited more than others, but they are up in the meantime to help those who would rather read and for searchability on the web. Extensive editing has not been prioritized as I seek to both produce regular content and maintain my own wellness. See the website disclaimer if you have questions, since this is all for your education and entertainment only. Enjoy!

Transcript

You’ve probably heard the phrase. Don’t just sit there, do something. And yet for the thoughtful, deliberate people out there like me, sometimes it’s easier to keep thinking about potential action things I need to learn, regardless of whether you consider yourself more of a thinker or a doer. Join me for the rest of today’s episode to hear why we all need to be doers and not just thinkers.

Thank you so much for joining me here on episode 34 of the MedEdWell podcast. Thank you so much for listening, for subscribing, for sharing these episodes. And for all you do to care for patients, colleagues, yourselves, and your communities. If you’re looking to increase your efficiency in a clinical setting, the leave more of your work at work, check out my free guide, maximize your clinical efficiency. You can download it at www.mededwell.com/efficiencyguide.

Today, we’ll be talking about how learning and reflection is both good and valuable. We will then look at putting these thoughts that learning into action. This is real, really important for growth both personally and professionally. Make sure you stick around to the end of today’s episode, where I share an important announcement with my application of these concepts.

So before we get into the rest of today’s episode, let’s hear from today’s sponsor disability insurance is complicated. Doctors. Shouldn’t have to take time to sort through a bunch of insurance quotes to find the best policy don’t stress over insurance shopping. Let pattern find the best coverage for you at the most affordable price by visiting patternlife.com/mededwell. That’s patternlife.com/mededwell. The link will also be in the show notes, an extra caveat for the med students out there. Disability insurance is something that you want to apply for once you are in residency and not before. All right now, back to today’s show.

Growing up, I loved to read. My parents really encouraged me. I would often do the summer library reading club, and we had a lot of books at home. I enjoyed learning things through books, experiences, going to museums. I am an introvert and I get energy from time alone at home in nature reading books. I like to think, but thinking and learning without action without being a doer as well is like staying in med school forever, always studying for licensing exams, but never seeing patience. Why go through all that just to keep it to yourself. Congrats. Now you can ACE step one. Great. How is that helping anyone? How is that making a difference for anything besides your ego? Part of wellness includes feeling like you can make a difference. And that involves action today. I want to discuss three ways to be a doer and not just a thinker, not just a learner.

First, you need to acknowledge that a thinker and a learner is good. It goes with a growth mindset and abundance and not a scarcity outlook. It involves learning, thinking, asking questions and helping to draw connections between things, being a thinker and a learner helps one consider new possibilities. Maybe one’s already out there, or with creativity, creating new options, new solutions, you can look at diverse interests and perspectives and bring them all to the table to create something new. We need all kinds of thinkers with synthesis and creativity and people doing good. Basic science research. These discoveries lay the groundwork for M breakthrough applications. So all thinkers are valuable. So first being a thinker and a learner is good, but number two, it can’t all stay inside thinking and learning must lead to action. There needs to be an external forward looking vision. There is certainly a place for thinking big thoughts or a reflecting on nature and appreciating learning itself.

But even that needs a trajectory, appreciating big thoughts, the beauty of mountains or the ocean, the intricacy of the human body. Those thoughts can help wellness and provide inspiration through these reflections that said, thinking should lead to action. It could be learning something and then compiling a lecture or a short talk for the students and residents that you work with. It may be the CME videos, lectures, or conferences that teach you new things in your area of medicine, so that you can take better care of your patients. I personally like tech things and automation. So I have tinkered with a number of app over the years, figuring out API calls, JSON, and lots of nerdy details. Some of those things have an external focus, helping with communication, language, learning, keeping updated addresses for my family. But I have spent a lot of time learning things with little external focus to show for it.

This was part of my motivation and this podcast, I had previously done a lecture for residents about financial wellness, but I wanted it to have a bigger impact to share what I had learned with more people than I faced imposter syndrome. Me make a podcast. Sure. I had a few skills and a willingness to do it. And with some encouragement I asked questions of others and then I stepped out and did it perfect. No, I am still learning a lot for sure. But now I can use my experience with burnout pursuing wellness to encourage others all because I didn’t keep my learning to myself. So first being a thinker is good. Second thinking should lead to action. And third action should lead to reflection. Thinking about the action to guide future action. You may attend a training to continue to refine your skills with say ultrasound so that you make progress over time.

For me, I recently talked with a specialist about re-exposure prophylaxis to reduce HIV transmission. I knew of it, but I got feedback and further information then was able to apply it clinically. Then I can further use the guidelines that I received to learn and grow in my clinical skills. I’m able to use these opportunities for both learning and doing, to advance both my skills and the care of my patients. These principles also apply to quality improvement projects. Those PDSA plan do study, hack their cycles. Similarly, with the podcast, I tried one hosting platform figured out my current needs were different and I made the switch to where I am now. I needed to figure it out and go for it. And so I did, I am still an introvert, but I have grown a lot these past six months and discipline taking action and figuring out the next step reevaluating and continuing to move forward.

So where does this leave? You? Are you a thinker who needs to take action? Are you an action taker who needs to reflect more? So subsequent action is better informed by your experience wherever you are. Take a moment and imagine, imagine if you to action on that thing that you are passionate about, you’ve probably already thought about it a lot. You may know the next step, but you may be in a group of colleagues or online where someone may know what to do next. You just need to ask whatever it is, take your next step today and see how it makes a difference for you, you and for others going forward. So thinking and doing reflection and action. This leads me to some recent reflection and the big announcement at the time of this recording, my wife and I are still waiting for our baby in the third trimester now.

So I’ve learned a lot about podcast processing, batching things, and looking to work ahead so that I can have continuity and consistency. I have a content plan. I was pushing hard to get ahead with eight to 12 extra episodes for when the baby comes. Then a few weeks ago, we all got COVID at my house. Thankfully, mild symptoms that significant fatigue meant early morning podcast work wasn’t happening. And I realized I wasn’t going to be present at home at work and be able to get three months ahead with the podcast. So I’ve decided to take a break for my wellness, for my wife and for my family to put into practice these wellness principles, this being the last episode until starting back up May 24th, I’ve got a whole series planned around productivity and things to help with personal and professional wellness through some of these workflow optimizations.

I’m also working on plans to have some guests on the podcast by the summer. In the meantime, please subscribe, catch up on the other episodes. Please join the email list to hear brief stories and hear when I’m ready to start back up again. I’ll still be on social media intermittently, but taking care of my family. And my wellness is really important a priority. This is part of my intentionality and caring for my wellness so that I’m able to care for others.

Thank you so much for joining me here on episode 34 of the MedEdWell podcast, please subscribe. Share this episode with a friend and leave a review. If you haven’t already check out my free PDF guide, maximize your clinical efficiency, where you can get both the PDF guide and join the email list, feel free to unsubscribe at any time. Please also consider getting a quote from pattern life for your disability insurance links in the show notes. Again, once you’re in residency or beyond. Thank you so much for all. You do. Take that next step in your wellness today. Have a great day.