Alas, this was not the case. Checking my voicemail, I found out that my uncle was in the hospital, my dog’s lab tests were abnormal, my mom was angry about something, and I had missed a dentist appointment that morning. Finally, our group assistant came with a message that our prized hospitalist recruit had accepted a job at another institution. Drip … drip … drip…
Self-Reflection
Now 2:30 p.m., I took stock of my day and reflected on what my resident mentee had said about hospitalists. Trying to balance the rigors of patient care, academic requirements, life, friends, family, and being a boss, I was most definitely feeling a bit downtrodden, unsated, and crispy around the edges. What, exactly, did I like about this job? Was this what I wanted professionally? Would I ever find balance? Perhaps, too, a rheumatology application could salve my problems.
It was at that point that the notice for the SHM annual meeting appeared, oracle-like, on my desk. Picking it up, I realized this, not a two-year sojourn through the world of creaky joints, was the tonic to my problems.
Meeting Hierarchy
Every year since I began going to the SHM annual meeting in 2003, the meeting has helped me rejuvenate and grow. Much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which posits that humans develop in stages that build on each other, I’ve found stepwise growth in the annual meeting.
Before my first meeting, I had been wandering nomadically through a hospitalist job for three years, wondering what, exactly, I was doing. I was the only hospitalist in my group, had few days off, with no support system around me. I had just agreed to take a job at another institution to build a new 10-person hospitalist group and had no idea how to do this. In Maslow terms, I was trying to satisfy my “physiologic needs” to survive. I needed to find, metaphorically, “food, water, clothes, and shelter.”
I found them at the annual meeting. The practice-management pre-course taught me how to build a hospitalist group, the mentorship breakfast introduced me to a veteran I still turn to, and the educational offerings helped improve my patient-care skills. I had conquered the base of Maslow’s pyramid.
The next year, I became involved in an SHM committee, and our gathering at the annual meeting helped set the course for our group’s future endeavors. I also met up with many friends I hadn’t seen since medical school and even recruited a person to my new group. In Maslow-speak, the meeting was helping me achieve my “safety needs” by providing control, well-being, and predictability.
By the third year, I was beginning to look forward to meeting up with national colleagues I had met at prior annual meetings, fulfilling Maslow’s third-stage need of “belonging.” During the ensuing years, I presented research projects, gave talks, and helped develop and lead forums and summits, thus quenching Maslow’s “self-esteem” need.
I wonder, as I leave my office to go back to see my afternoon complement of new patients, what my ninth annual meeting will bring. I’m not sure if I’ll ever achieve Maslow’s final phase of “self-actualization,” mostly because I’m not entirely sure what that means. However, I do know this: This job can be tough. We all feel it regardless of our age, gender, or practice setting. It is easy to get knocked out of balance, to get beaten down, to lose our focus. It is at those times that we all need a mariner to right the course. To remind us why we do this, to allow us to recharge, to facilitate our growth, to fulfill our needs.