Balance between work and life

Work-life balance is about ensuring that work doesn’t take up more of your life than it should or you want it to.

How often do you get the chance to think about you? Do you know where you are in your life and career, and where you would like to be in the future?

At this point in my career, I do not feel that things are exactly in balance. The hours in my day are not evenly split between my two “main” vocations. Like my profession, my needs for balance are never in complete equilibrium so I have to be flexible in addressing my work and home life priorities.

Telemedicine is championed as a great way to extend the range of some physicians, yet this is not possible for most critical life-saving procedures like Caesarean section deliveries.

Even when I work as a physician, I do not completely step out of that role when I step out of the office door. When “at work”, I am wholly and always a father and a husband. Leaving my children at home (or at school) does not mean family is “out of mind”. The essence of the medical profession is more “who I am” than “what I do”.

Similarly, my roles as father and husband are part of how I define myself as a person. Over the years, I have learned the importance of spousal support. My wife supports me, particularly with duties once deemed traditionally ‘male’. I always say I married late for a reason: I was waiting for the woman who would willingly partner with me in parenting and support me both at home and professionally.

From the time our first child was born, I have been striving to achieve the goal of a balanced life. I now realise that this is more a process than a completed task.

The elusive work-life balance is harder for doctors to attain if their spouse or partner is also a doctor.

As someone once said, nobody on their deathbed ever declared, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office (surgery, clinic or lab).”

Photo: elev8.com