The purpose of vacations is rejuvenation. Very few doctors reach the goal of being completely rejuvenated by the end of their vacation. We work hard for many years and from time to time we need to take a break and recharge our batteries. For a vacation to be effective at rejuvenating us, it needs to be a respite from work. Work generates stress, so the vacation must take the stress level all the way down to zero.
Many doctors blow their vacation time when they turn their vacation into something in name only. Consequently, they do not get the effects needed from their time off. If you dread going on vacation, like many doctors do, then changes need to be made until you look forward to the time off and can come home rejuvenated.
(Listen to my latest podcast with my friend The Frugal Physician (Disha Spath), where we discuss Finding Joy in Your Work: How to Build a Life You Love Without Leaving Healthcare. This is based on my new book, The Doctors Guide to Finding Joy in Your Work.)
Following are ten of the big mistakes I see doctors make regarding their vacations. If you see yourself in any of these examples, make changes now, before you burn out.
1: Not signing out
If you do not sign out the responsibility of your patients to another doctor, then you are not on vacation, you are working remotely. This is often seen in doctors who work alone and do not have a partner to easily sign out to.
If you are in this situation, find another physician in the same boat and make an agreement to cover each other for vacations. It doesn’t have to be someone in the same specialty. As a general surgeon, I used to cover for a urologist and a hand surgeon, both in solo practices and the only one in that specialty in town.
I could handle almost any emergency that came up with one of their post op patients. If the problem was beyond my training, I sent them to another town to get their issue resolved. This rarely happened.
If you can’t find someone to reciprocate, then pay someone to cover for you. It’s worth it.
2: Checking in on patients
Checking in on patients from afar is not usually helpful. I had a partner who used to do this. He would sign out a hospitalized patient out to me, and then he would call in from Disney World to check on the patient, hear a lab result, then give verbal orders to the nurse.
This was a big problem for me as I’m waiting to hear the results from the lab test, but since the nurse had already given the results to a doctor and received orders regarding the lab results, I was never contacted. I’m currently the doctor in charge of the patient, yet I don’t have all the information I need because the vacationing doctor is getting in my way.
When you are on vacation, it is supposed to be a break from work. So, STOP WORKING!
3: Taking work calls
In the era of swapping out a pager for texting, we have developed a big problem; We are never out of touch. When I did locums work, I insisted on using a pager. When I finished my assignment, I turned off the pager. Otherwise, the next day, when I was in another time zone, a nurse could call me thinking I was still in charge of the patient. I hated receiving those 6am calls when I was finally able to sleep in.
There is a great line at the end of one of the James bond movies where M had promised James a vacation upon completing the assignment. When he finished the assignment, he told M that he was going on that promised vacation. M asked him where he was going. James responded with something like: “If I told you where I was going, it would not be a vacation.”
4: Checking your work email
Never check your work email when on vacation. Every time you do, you are back at work and not with your family. You are thinking about work which raises your stress level back up again. Once you read an email you feel like you must respond.
If you expect to receive an important email while you are gone, get someone else in your office to handle the email. Or you can put an auto responder on your email telling the sender you are unavailable and if this is urgent to please send the email to Dr. X, or nurse Y so they can take care of it promptly.
5: Scheduling work right up to your departure time
If you plan to work right up to the time the plane leaves, you will be rushing to get everything done, increasing your stress level. You are then more likely to make mistakes which puts you under even more pressure.
If you are leaving Friday evening, then stop scheduled work that day at noon. Then you have time to tie up all your loose ends and be ready before it is time to leave. If you can’t stop scheduled work and must work a full day on Friday, then leave for your vacation on Saturday morning.
Don’t add stress to your time off by pushing your work right up to the departure time.
6: Planning too much “fun”
Don’t cram too much fun into your vacation. Vacations are a time for rest and relaxation. Many doctors want to “get the most” out of their vacation and cram their vacation with lots of activities. One common vacation that depicts this problem is to try to visit three Hawaiian Islands in one week.
Every time you change islands it wastes a day of vacation as you repack, get to the airport, fly to the next island, find your hotel, unpack and figure out what there is to do in the new place.
Pick one island and spend the week there. You will find plenty of nice things for your family to do without blowing your time at the airport.
Stop trying to pack your vacation full of activities. Spending time with your family in an enjoyable location doing things together that you all enjoy will do wonders to rejuvenate you.
7: Arriving home late on the day before work starts
Just like cramming in your departure, cramming in your return is a mistake. Many doctors come home on a very late flight on Sunday night and get up at 5am to start a full day of work on Monday.
Returning to work very tired dramatically decreases your desire to go on another vacation, since you feel worse after the vacation than you felt before the vacation. This is a self-inflicted wound. Come home and give yourself a day before you need to get back to work.
8: Scheduling a full day of work on the first day back
If possible, schedule yourself to start seeing patients at noon on Monday, or better yet, take Monday off. That will give you the morning, or a day, to catch up on the stuff that piled up while you were gone.
Too much piled up work is the reason many doctors hate to leave. The first time this happens, figure out what work is piling up and next time make arrangements for that work to get done while you are gone so you won’t be behind the eightball when you return to work.
9: Mistaking a long weekend for a vacation
Weekends are not vacations. I like to call them trips, to differentiate them for a refreshing vacation. A weekend getaway can be a fun endeavor, but they are not long enough to reduce your stress level and give you true rejuvenation.
10: Never taking more than one week off at a time
This is something many doctors hate to hear. They are in the mode of thinking they can only take one week off at a time because too much work will pile up if they take more time off. But the opposite is true. If you are gone for only a week, the office staff knows you will be back soon, so they let the work pile up for you. But if you are gone for three weeks, they will need to handle anything that comes in while you are gone knowing problems need to be resolved in a timely manner. Therefore, problems don’t pile up.
I took a three-week motorhome vacation with my family every summer. The first week I was unwinding from my work so that the second week was a vacation. The third week was a dream!
I discussed this concept with one doctor in his 60s who had never taken more than one week off at a time. He decided to try a two-week vacation and it was the best vacation he ever had and vowed to never take less than a two-week vacation again.
Which of these issues do you struggle with? Isn’t it about time you stop the struggle? Do something to fix it so the next vacation is a refreshing respite from work. If you wish to find other ways to have more joy in your work, please pick up a copy of my latest book, The Doctors Guide to Finding Joy in Your Work, so you can become a happier physician.
