Dear colleagues,<\/p>\n
A few miscellaneous thoughts for the New Years. It has been an incredibly difficult few years. It is hard to let go at the end of the day, and at the end of the year, but it may be one of the most important skills you develop as a physician.\u00a0Letting go of the work and worry one day enables us to get up the next day and be present to your patients and others the next day.\u00a0There isn\u2019t just one way to practice letting go at the end of the day.\u00a0Self-awareness about the importance of letting go of work always helps.\u00a0Some have rituals or signposts (literal or figurative) that remind them to transition from work to home.\u00a0\u00a0The following writing by farmer and poet Wendell Berry has been helpful in letting go at the end of the day:<\/p>\n
Whatever is foreseen in joy
\n<\/em>must be lived out from day to day.
\n<\/em>vision held open in the dark
\n<\/em>by our ten thousand days of work.
\n<\/em>harvest will fill the barn; for that
\n<\/em>the hand must ache, the face must sweat.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nAnd yet no leaf or grain is filled
\n<\/em>by work of ours; the field is tilled
\n<\/em>and left to grace.\u00a0That we may reap,
\n<\/em>great work is done while we\u2019re asleep.<\/em><\/p>\nWhen we work well, a Sabbath mood
\n<\/em>Rests on our day, and finds it good.<\/em><\/p>\n-Wendell Berry, Sabbaths, North Point Press, San Francisco 1987<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Yes, we work hard\u2014the hand must ache, the face must sweat, and the patients must be seen.\u00a0But at the end of the day, we can rest in the knowledge that we have done our best.\u00a0Great work is <\/strong>done while you are asleep: by your colleagues, by the human body\u2019s ability to heal, and by forces beyond us.<\/p>\n