Are you entering the Danger Zone as a physician on the job?

It must be an act of synchronicity! Today, as I was contemplating a topic for the newsletter, I opened three separate e-mails. Each triggered musings about life, and in particular life as a physician, based on my own experiences and those of the many colleagues with whom I communicate and coach.

As many of you know by now, I have long been fascinated by the subject of happiness – what it is, how we find it, how we create it – and especially happiness at work. So my eye is always caught by anecdotes and information in which there is an absence of happiness, or a secret to finding it!

The first e-mail alerted me to a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, titled "Surgeon Distress as Calibrated by Hours Worked and Nights on Call"

It came to this not surprising conclusion:

"Number of hours worked and nights on call per week appear to have a substantial impact on surgeons, both professionally and personally. These factors are strongly related to burnout, depression, career satisfaction, and work and home conflicts."

As I know many of you will attest, the Danger Zone for physicians looms when work becomes overwhelming, menial, tedious, exhausting, boring or highly supervised.

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 The second e-mail pointed me in a different direction. I was alerted to an article written by a fellow coach and titled "The 3 R’s of Reinvention".

The subject of reinvention is very much on my mind as Dee and I prepared to deliver our Physician Odyssey Program this week. Career transition is all about reinvention!

But what this article reminded me is that Reinvention is not only about Doing… It's also very much about Being. And Bonnie Leonard infuses her idea of reinvention with Relaxation, Restoration and Reflection. Quite right – it's how we nurture our Being that will impact the success of our Doing!

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The third e-mail is actually one of a series of "Creative and Personal Mastery" e-mails I've been receiving from Professor Srikumar Rao, with little video clips that are based on his book, Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful - No Matter What"

Here is just one example.

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 Some concluding thoughts --

 Three Do's to find happiness on the job:

• Do feel your passion, or as Joseph Campbell says "follow your bliss"
• Do reinvent yourself through periodic relaxation, restoration and reflection
• Do develop your "personal operating plan", complete with your Vision, Sense of Purpose, and clearly understood Core Values

 Three Don'ts on the job:

• Don't ignore the warning signs of impending burnout
• Don't expect someone else to make your pain or frustration go away – it's on your shoulders to take action
• Don't forget that life is short and major regrets are to be avoided wherever possible!

Finally, one of the greatest gifts I've given myself recently was to read a teeny book, written by a physician, Ray Bennett M.D., called "The Underachiever"s Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing Little and Feeling Great".

 Phew – what a relief it is to give myself permission to "underachieve"!