As you move from student to physician-in-training, the way you learn changes as well.
As a student, you have a core curriculum to follow.
As residents and attending physicians, you direct your learning.
Sure, there are opportunities to learn from scheduled lectures, grand rounds, and attending rounds.
You have to become active participants in extrapolating the information you need from the information presented.
You have to become even more purposeful to make learning a priority.
The exciting part is you can create your curriculum that incorporates what you need for a successful life and career.
Experiences with patients and their families shape the lesson plan.
Effectively and efficiently engaging with medical professionals on the team contributes to the blueprint.
Discovering what makes you happy and feeling fulfilled ads to the syllabus.
Creating your curriculum and having the discipline to diligently direct the course empowers doctors to move purposefully in your life and career.
Here are three areas of focus to create your curriculum:
Learn more about yourself.
You have mastered the medical information.
You are working on integrating your knowledge into the patient experience.
What do you need to learn about yourself?
Do you even know what makes you happy?
Most doctors focus on their patients, their staff, their career advancement, and their families.
Create time to focus on your interests and hobbies that when you add them to your life experience helps to relieve stress and bring ease into your life.
Notice what aspects of medicine energize you and excite your soul.
These are the experiences you enjoy engaging in.
This is a clue that you are operating in your genius zone.
Maybe it’s clinical.
Maybe it’s in the research arena.
Maybe your interest is in quality improvement, IT, or enhancing the patient experience.
This modern era of medicine offers many new avenues to explore.
Tapping into your genius zone directs your path.
Notice what are the experiences where you struggle, doubt yourself, and complain.
Before completely abandoning those experiences, dissect out the reasons why they elicit the reactions and feelings that they do.
What values are being challenged?
Is there something to learn professionally or personally that will shift the experience into a positive one?
Creating a core curriculum adds direction to your life and career.
Once outlined, it aids in the decision-making process as opportunities arise.
