Continued....Creative
Scheduling
Define success
Finding the right blend of work and
personal life also requires that you clarify your own
definition of success, says Yost. What are you striving for
long-term? What kind of lifestyle do you want? What other
activities and pursuits would you like to engage in that you
haven’t yet been able to do? What type of hospital or
private practice do you aspire to join? Do you have an eye on a
particular fellowship? What kind of income goal have you set?
All of these questions will help you picture your ideal future.
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But even before they established
their own practice, the Wilsons were able to coordinate their
schedules to a much greater degree than other couples by asking
their former community health director if they could job share.
Although job sharing is not very common in medicine, explains
Les Wilson, “[the director] was thrilled to have access
to two qualified physicians.” And because they were
trained in the same specialty, they could also cover for each
other.
Today, the Wilsons have raised job
sharing to near art form. The only two physicians in their
practice, Les and Vicki schedule month-to-month and ensure that
one of them is always in the office. One month, Les is in the
office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays all day, while Vicki
works only through early afternoon. On Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Les works the shorter shift while Vicki works all day at the
office. At 2 pm, whoever is off picks up the kids at school and
shuttles them to a laundry list of sports and extracurricular
activities-basketball, baseball, volleyball, cross-country,
gymnastics, soccer, as well as piano, trumpet, and clarinet
lessons.
Though they may seem the model of
scheduling flexibility, the Wilsons implemented an electronic
medical record system (EMR) in October 2004 to further enhance
their productivity and flexibility. “[The system] allows
us to have access to patient records from anywhere,” says
Vicki Erwin-Wilson, “so we can do work from home at 11 pm
or charting at 5:30 am, as well as review notes from staff or
lab notes.” Les says the move to EMR saves them, on
average, two hours of office time per day, because “we
don’t have to finish every bit of work at the
office.”
Such efforts to reduce office time
are guided by their first priority-spending time with their
children. Having that shared goal makes work scheduling
somewhat simpler.
Assess goal compatibility
As you examine your work-life fit vision
and your definition of success, try to identify aspects of each
that you can change, says Yost. Just as important is knowing
which elements you can’t change. Look for ways to make
adjustments within the realm of possibilities. You can’t
realistically work a 40-hour week in two days, but maybe your
salary goal doesn’t need to be as high, giving you more
flexibility on the work side of the equation.
For example, the Wilson’s goal
was to spend more time at home with their children, while
continuing to manage a thriving family practice. Their most
recent investment in EMR supports that goal, freeing up more
family time without impacting patient care. But there are many
solutions to each individual’s situation.
Elizabeth “Beth” Frates
had planned to go into business after college, but when her
father suffered a stroke shortly after she arrived on campus at
Harvard her freshman year, her interest in medicine was fueled.
Although she wanted a challenging career, Frates also knew she
wanted to get married and have children, so during med school
she invested a great deal of time in choosing a specialty that
would be conducive to having a family. After considering
several options, from pediatrics to neurology to cardiology,
she came across physiatry, a lesser-known specialty that
combines physical medicine and rehabilitation. In addition to
providing an appealing work-life balance, Frates also found she
could develop a specialty in working with stroke patients, her
personal interest.
In 1999, during her fourth year of
residency at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Frates
unwittingly tested the bounds of flexibility when she became
the first resident in that department to become pregnant. It
didn’t impact her career plan, however, and once she
joined the staff at Spaulding, which is affiliated with Mass
General, her plan was to get a full-time nanny for her son,
John. But once she had the baby, “he changed my life
incredibly,” she says. “I knew I wanted to be with
this baby,” and not at work full-time.
Approaching her department chairman,
Dr. Walter Frontera, she was nervous about the reception she
would get to her request for time off. His response:
“What do you want to do? We’ll figure out a
way to make it happen.” As long as she was willing to
continue to contribute to the department in a significant and
meaningful way, such as by performing research, publishing
articles, writing books, or teaching medical students and
residents, Dr. Frontera would support her. Relieved and
thankful, her response was to take six months off, during which
she wrote articles and cared for her newborn. Once that time
was up, she asked to teach at Harvard Medical School, which she
loved, as well as to do some writing and research. Again,
Frontera’s response was, “You tell me what you want
to do and I’ll support you.”
Frates’ schedule now varies
based on whether she’s teaching or not—during those
months, September through November, her parents step in to help
care for John and Peter, who arrived 21 months after John. When
she’s not teaching, a typical day consists of taking care
of the boys during the day, then writing or doing research from
7 to 10 pm. She also works weekends from home, writing while
her husband takes care of the children, for a total of about 25
hours a week. That figure jumps to around 40 when a writing
deadline looms, however. Her book, Preventing a Second Stroke,
was released in March (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).
Recognize your value to your employer
Clearly, Frates’ boss is a forward
thinker. He is the chairman of the department of physical
medicine and rehabilitation at the Harvard Medical School and
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. His willingness to
accommodate his staff’s changing career and scheduling
needs is rather unorthodox, but he argues that it is necessary
in order to attract and keep top performers.
“If we want to keep people
happy, we have to come up with ways of understanding their
situations and accommodating their needs as much as
possible,” says Frontera. At Spaulding,
“there’s benefit to the faculty, to the school, and
the department and field in allowing a creative schedule...I
don’t see the downside.”
Yost agrees. “Helping your
employees address both their work and personal responsibilities
makes good business sense.” g
Marcia Layton Turner lives in Rochester,
New York. This is her third feature for Unique Opportunities.
