It is interesting how perspective changes with variations in light, age, health or patterns of thought. Depression or exuberance, pessimism or optimism all shape the palette of shared experience, leading to drastically different truths from identical experience.
A Matter of Perspective
Optimists believe this is the best of all possible worlds and pessimists worry that optimists may in fact be correct.
This quip is humorous because it so aptly illustrates the human conundrum of perspective. After a shower, a transient rainbow plays across the sky, lighting the pathway to a pot of gold. Yet those on the same ground from another angle or line of sight see only leaves and branches broken in the recent storm.
What Matters is What Matters to You
So, graduating residents are deep into the rigors of the job search. All bring to their own unique circumstances of family, financial constraints, health concerns, and inherent attitudes.
Each will perceive a rainbow and a path to a pot of gold, a path that will be mapped by their own parameters. It is tempting to judge the coming search on data that can be compared: numbers, salary, vacation, time until partnership, buy-ins, CME funds and all of the parts of practice that color medicine as business.
Advice from Those Who’ve Been There
But we suggest you pause and consider that in focusing only on the numbers, you risk losing your way.
Here are some thoughts that are not amenable to contracts and job descriptions; but they’re what’s really valuable in that pot at the end of the rainbow.
First, take care of yourself. Remember the Yiddish proverb that to a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish. There is a time to work and a time for reconstitution of your self. There is a grand world outside of dermatology. Remember that if you wear your seat belt, don’t smoke, exercise regularly, and are careful with alcohol, you will likely live to a ripe old age.
Second, take care of your personal life. If you’re married, date your spouse at least weekly. It will be the wisest investment — both monetarily and for happiness — that you can make.
Third, plan to live within your means. Look around you today and you will find that many of your contemporaries — and maybe even you yourself — are failing in this choice. Know that it is a choice and doing so will give you greater freedom, flexibility, and a sense of well being. Not making that choice brings you the opposite.
Fourth, invest in a retirement vehicle. You are already getting a late start. Whether you are a democrat or a republican, you don’t want to count on the largess and benevolence of government. If you need help, consider Andrew Tobias’s The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need.
Fifth, don’t base your job decision strictly on the numbers. Comparing different contract offers will be like comparing apples and oranges, with the many variations in salary, benefits, earnings based on collections and earnings based on billings. While bringing them to a common monetary denominator is expected, don’t base your decision on these numbers. Intangibles are infinitely more important.
Sixth, involve yourself in some way with academics, whether it is part time or full time. Being a part of something larger than yourself touches one of the places where happiness hides. Contributing to the growth and development of all the terrific dermatology trainees is intensely invigorating. Don’t miss out on it.
Seventh, pursue your dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are “going to the dark side,” whatever that means. What’s right for one person in terms of scope of practice may not be for someone else. Those who think that there are dermatologists who have chosen the wrong path see through the prism of their own path. Remember, different rainbows, different pots of gold.
Eighth, remember you are human and you will make mistakes. Bernie Ackerman is credited with saying, “To err is human, to learn from your mistakes divine.” Remember this, and remember to forgive others as you forgive yourself.
Count Your Blessings
Finally, know in your very marrow that as dermatologists we have been blessed. With that blessing comes responsibility. Nelson Rockefeller believed that “every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity, an obligation, every possession a duty.” Plan to be generous in sharing your blessings with others.
Enjoy every day. When you least expect it and when you are no longer looking, contentment will light on your shoulder. n
Dr. Williford is Director of Dermatologic Surgery in the Department of Dermatology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC.
Fall Clinical Dermatology 2007
Acne Case Reports
2007 ADVANCES IN COSMETIC &
MEDICAL DERMATOLOGY
“MAUI DERM” CONFERENCE
July 2007 CME Supplement
2007 Winter Dermatology Conference Hawaii®
2006 4th Annual Fall Conference Supplemental Proceedings