Don't Let Your Dreams Die During Residency!- A Personal Story of How I wrote "What Will Kami E. Bee?" During My Residency Training
Sep 12, 2023Season 1Episode 20
Jasmine Weiss
Ever felt like medicine was all-consuming in your life? Have you ever wondered if there's space for your other dreams to flourish? I've been there too. In this episode of the B-MED podcast, I share my personal journey of writing the children's book entitled "What Will Kami E. Bee? 📚 during my demanding residency training. Along the journey, I learned three key tips to help me go from an individual with a dream to a published author! Do you have dreams you want to accomplish? Keep pushing! 🌟
Tune in to discover how you can make room for your passions alongside your medical career. 🎙️🏥
Ever felt like medicine was all-consuming in your life? Have you ever wondered if there's space for your other dreams to flourish? I've been there too. In this episode of the B-MED podcast, I share my personal journey of writing the children's book entitled "What Will Kami E. Bee? 📚 during my demanding residency training. Along the journey, I learned three key tips to help me go from an individual with a dream to a published author! Do you have dreams you want to accomplish? Keep pushing! 🌟
Tune in to discover how you can make room for your passions alongside your medical career. 🎙️🏥
Check out bmedconnect.com for more exclusive content and to learn more about our upcoming app!
Speaker 1:
Have you ever wanted to do something that maybe is not really associated with you getting your medical degree or being a physician, but just feeling like how is it possible to have any other dreams other than sticking to the goal of becoming a doctor? Well, today I'm here to talk to you about not letting your dreams die during residency or medical training in general. I had the opportunity of creating a children's book during my residency training and I share a little bit about that on today's episode. I also talk a little bit about three key tips to make sure your dreams don't die while you're pursuing that ultimate goal of becoming a physician. With that being said, let's jump right into the episode. Roll the Music. Have you ever had a dream that you are aspiring to? But you also have some other things you'd like to do as well.
Speaker 1:
For me as a resident, once I finished med school, I knew the biggest goal in life right now, in this moment, is to become an outstanding pediatrician. Right, I'm here to learn, I'm here to grow as a physician, as a new physician, and yet you know there are still some other things I wanted to do. I had goals not only in medicine but outside of medicine, and today. That's what I'm here to talk to you about. What I want to share with you are three key tips about how to make sure the things you want to do that are outside of medicine can still happen while you're in your training years and even beyond outside of training. How do you balance the things you do every day with patient care responsibilities, with your other interests or hobbies? So I'm going to share a little story with you. So some may know that I'm a children's book author and my book is called what Will Cammy EB. Well, I actually wrote that story during residency and still to this day, I get questions about how in the world was it possible for you to write a children's book in the middle of the busiest time of your life? Well, for me, the three key tips I'm going to share today is how I got it done. So the first tip I want to share with you all is you have to carve out time when you can right, and the key caveat here is when you can.
Speaker 1:
So if I was on a busy rotation where I was working days and nights, sometimes 14 hours, 16 hours, 20 days in a row, that's not the time for me to think about how I can let other dreams that are not medical, or my dreams that aren't related to me becoming a pediatrician. Those were at the times where I was working on those things, however, on rotations where I had a little bit more free time. So the rotations that were in outpatient offices where I got to come home at five o'clock, those were the times when I actually was able to pursue the goals and pursue the dreams I had that weren't necessarily focused on becoming a great pediatrician. So, for instance, I wrote my children's story in a little journal on rotations, like our community health rotation, where we weren't in the hospital every day, so I might write just a few notes or a few pages at a time, but over time I was able to create and finish the entire story. So it wasn't that I could do these things at all times, but I was able to pursue my outside interests when I had some more free time.
Speaker 1:
So that's my first tip for everyone whether you're in residency and medical school, or even if you're not even a healthcare professional, don't pick the busiest time of your life to try to also pursue your hobbies. Just find little times where you can carve out a little bit of space for those different interests that you may have. So let's go on a little bit. You know you can talk about carving out time, but first you need to set a goal in general. You know, I had a goal of being a children's author and an entrepreneur, even when I had the goals of becoming a physician, and so I knew I couldn't do it all at the same time. And that's my second tip for everybody, it's don't try to do it all at once. Set goals so you can do things in your future Right. So I wrote my first children's story as a resident, but I literally did not touch it for years. It sat in my journal and I knew at some point in the future, when this busy time in life is over, I will be able to carve out a little bit more time, and so my second tip for everyone is go ahead and set the goals that you have. That may not, you may not be able to accomplish right away, but set them for some time in the future.
Speaker 1:
I had a great mentor, tell me once. Her name was Dr Brenda Armstrong. She told me you know, this is a great project that you want to do, but you got to focus on doing your clinical rotations right now. It doesn't mean that you can't do, it Just means not right now. And I took that advice to heart. I used it as a resident when writing my children's story and I even continue to use it now when I'm balancing my responsibilities seeing patients with my research responsibilities and pursuing my goals for my business and my book.
Speaker 1:
So my last tip for everyone is important, this is probably the most important Make sure you have a cheerleader. You just need one person, at least one. You got more than one. You need to share this goal that you have, that you're carving out a little bit of time for, with at least one person. For me, that person was my mother, and so every once in a while my mom would say have you done anything with your children's book? And I'd be like no mom, like how, how is that possible? What time do I have right now to worry about my children's book? But over time, every once in a while, she just asked I'm waiting to see. Can we come out? When is the cammy story coming out? And years went by, but those little reminders helped me realize hey, wait, I do have something important to share with the world, so let me make sure I pursue it further, and so it went from being a little book in a journal that I knew I wanted to publish to eventually I got it edited while I was on a lighter rotation in my residency, and then it was just sitting as an edited manuscript for quite a long time. It wasn't until fellowship, when I was almost done with training, that I realized OK, now is the time for me to put the wheels in motion to actually get this published. And so what I want to reiterate is that I've set this process in motion much earlier than I actually got the final product, but every once in a while I would remember to carve out a little bit of time, whether it be to write the story or even just to go to the bookstore and get some inspiration about seeing other children's books out there and reminding me that one day I want to be on the shelves too. Similar to that, just knowing that I had a cheerleader who was going to ask me every blue boon about have you written your children's book yet? And that was just enough to keep the wheels in motion so that eventually I could publish my children's story. So I want to leave these take home messages with you.
Speaker 1:
We all have different things in our hearts and minds to do. We have a different reason we're here. Some of it is all career focused, right For the longest wanted to focus on being a phenomenal pediatrician, and I still want to do that. But you have to remember that life takes place both inside the workplace and outside of the workplace. So whatever hobbies you may have, whatever goals you may have outside of medicine, whatever dreams you may have, you can still do those things. Just remember to take it in tiny, tiny little doses and carve out some time. Make sure you set those goals that may have to happen in the future and, most importantly, to make sure that you have an accountability buddy who's going to be your biggest cheerleader. Shout out to you mom, who's going to be your biggest cheerleader? And ultimately you'll be able to accomplish those goals and make sure that your dreams don't die during residency.
Speaker 1:
Ok, so one question I received was how did you balance your doctor responsibilities with your other interests? You know, I kind of talked through it just a little bit. The big thing is not trying to take on too much at the same time and making sure that when the time was right, I was able to carve a little bit of time to get things done piece by piece, while making sure to maintain all the responsibilities that I had. So, great question I can continue to do that as well, right? For instance, I have my daily responsibilities for my job, but then in the evenings I may be able to carve out a little bit of time to think about the BlackMed Connect podcast. Or I may be able to carve out a little bit of time to think about our upcoming app that's coming soon, and so these are all of the ways in which I balance my time, but also pursue my goals within medicine, within my career, with patient care and research, but also my interest in entrepreneurship and writing and thus itself.
Speaker 1:
Well, with that being said, I want to also say to everyone thank you, thank you, thank you for taking out time to support the BlackMed Connect podcast. We're just getting started with our first season and we're looking forward to so many more opportunities to collaborate and share and connect with you all. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the BlackMed Connect podcast, our very first live episode, and if you did enjoy this episode, make sure you comment down below with fire emojis to let us know that you enjoyed this and you want us to do more episodes live. Make sure you go and stream on all podcast platforms, whether that be Spotify or Apple or any platform where you like listening to your podcast. If you haven't followed us on social media yet, be sure to follow us on Instagram, linkedin and Twitter at BlackMed Connect. And always remember to dream without limits. We'll see you next time. Bye, music.
