B = f(P, E)

August 27, 2016
We are back in our house.
I am back to running.
For those reasons (and maybe more), I am feeling so peaceful and calm right now.  Despite being at work with one of the longest inpatient rounding lists I have seen since moving down here.

I was at a lecture on physician well-being (of all things) and the speaker, a psychologist, displayed the following equation in big print on his powerpoint slide:

B = f(P, E) 

B = behavior
P = person
E = environment

Behavior is a function of a person (and all of the complexities that come with that person!) and their environment.  And man oh MAN, did the past week (with the Great A/C Failure) illustrate this for me.  When everything was chaotic, I felt chaotic.  And I probably acted chaotic.  And it was just a horribly unpleasant time.  Everything in my life felt difficult.  I was so tired, and wasn’t sleeping well.  I wasn’t exercising which just made me feel even worse.  Everything felt like a crisis.  I know I complained like crazy to my coworkers (which probably got annoying) and I actually had a breakdown (yep, crying!) about something that in retrospect seems like sooooo not a big deal.

And now — even though I have more work than I know what to do withI just feel so much better.  I rounded on many patients today and was able to do it without feeling panicky and out of control.  I feel like I provided really good and thoughtful care today, which is a great feeling.  I also feel like I cared for myself: slept well last night (only one work call), ran this AM before the kids were up, even took a few minutes to sit and use my meditation app before I hit the hospital for rounds.  All of this because my environment went from one where I was completely out of control to one where everything runs (fairly) smoothly.

Off to go home and spend the rest of the day with A&C.  Even though I will inevitably have calls to answer this oddly dose not throw me into a panic like it sometimes does.  This is a working weekend, as are 20% of my weekends, and I’m just feeling at peace with it.  And life in general.

Let’s hope it lasts!!

Working and brand new A/C!

1 Comment

  • Reply Elaine March 10, 2019 at 7:10 pm

    I’m sorry you had a rough week but glad you’re feeling much calmer! The weeks I don’t run I know I’m more anxious and quick to focus on the negative. This actually touches on something I’ve wanted to ask for a while. I feel as a junior doctor I’m never good enough and this makes me feel very anxious at work. It’s not that anything major has gone wrong (touch wood) just that I feel my bosses don’t think I’m anything beyond average when I really want to impress as I love my current rotation (Paeds endo! Can also totally relate to a massive list,we had x3 our usual new type 1 diagnoses this week) Is this something you experienced as a resident? Any advice how not to let it stress me out so much? Or ways to make everyone love me so they’ll want me as a their fellow 😉

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