Alright, well thank you everyone for joining us. We're gonna switch gears a little bit. I have the very honorable task of talking to you all today about how I make time for myself and my work. So unfortunately right now I don't have any financial disclosures, maybe one day, but I do have other important disclosures I want to highlight. So first of all, I am by no means an expert on this topic, okay, but I do hope that what I chat about with you today would be helpful and, if nothing else, at least a little bit entertaining. So to give you a little bit of background in terms of who I am, just so you can frame, you know, why I'm telling you the things I'm telling you. So as I mentioned, I am a junior faculty at the University of Michigan. I do transplant hepatology, so half of my time right now I do clinical work. The other half of the time I spend doing clinical research. That's my professional life in terms of my personal life. So I'm a single mom to three kids. I have a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old. So if that frames the rest of my discussion of my perspectives, I think that's helpful to know. All right, so in terms of, like, I spend a lot of time trying to frame how do I broach this topic, and so I tried to think about all of the advice I've gotten over the years, because I ask this question all the time, how do you do what you do? And so I tried to boil it down to five different tenets. So tenet number one, this is very, very important, accept the reality of the myth. What myth am I talking about? Well, people have already said it multiple times. And you have to figure out what's perception, what's reality. Everyone says work-life balance, right? And when they say that, it's this beautiful picture of work in a nice little box, life in another box, and it's very easily balanced. I'm telling you that doesn't exist, okay? That is a unicorn. And it's important for you to know that, and to recognize that, and to be okay with that, because if you don't, you're gonna be miserable, and you're constantly gonna be criticizing yourself, and feeling like, I'm just not doing what I should be doing, and this should be easier. And so for anyone who knows me at all, I really like to dance. And so the way I conceptualize this, you know, it's not this easy balancing act. Your life, and how you balance it, and how you get through things, is a very dynamic process. So depending on what you're doing in your life, and what's going on, you kind of have to tailor your approach. So sometimes my life, not very often, but sometimes, it's this very calm choreographed ballet, and everything is easy, and smooth, and it looks like, you know, nothing at all. Other times, it's kind of chaotic, and I don't really know what's going on in the middle picture on the top, but you you kind of work with it, and you do what you can. Other times, you know, you just kind of have to go with the flow, and that is much more of the reality, at least from my perception, in terms of what work-life balance is. And so the way I think about this is mostly to try and embrace organized chaos, which sounds like an oxymoron, but that's really, for the most part, what it is. So who knows who this is? Anyone? So this is Marie Kondo. So she is very well known for kind of organizing your house. So if your house is cluttered, your office is a mess, she is very, very well known for how to get that under control. Why am I bringing her up? Well, I think because she focuses on house stuff, a lot of people embrace her philosophy in terms of how to get your life, in terms of your personal life, your professional life, or organized and manageable. And so this is a real-life picture of Elliot Tepper's desk, right? So everything he needs is there, but it's not organized in any way, shape, or form. He can get what he needs done, but there are things that you can get rid of, there are things that you can organize much better. I'm just kidding, that's not his desk. This would be a more accurate representation of what his desk is. So Marie Kondo really focuses on identifying what is important to your life, removing everything that you don't need, so long as you can remove it, and then organizing it in a way that focuses on what your priority is and what brings joy to your life. And this is a philosophy that I have come to try and adopt in terms of how I approach my personal and professional life. So a very key tenet of her philosophy is identifying what sparks joy. And so this is the book that she wrote that really made her famous, and so it's called Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which doesn't sound magical or exciting at all, but it actually is very useful. And so as I said, what has been really important to me is to try and sit back and identify both professionally and personally what brings joy to my life. What makes me want to go to work every day? What makes me very happy when I get home at the end of the day? But when you just start with that question, what brings you joy, that can be a very hard question to answer. And so what she says from there is to really try and step back and imagine what's your ideal career and lifestyle. The reason I have an asterisk there is what's ideal and what's realistic are not always the same, right? So if you ask me what's my ideal career, you know, I can just sit there and spew up all these research ideas and have everyone do all the work, write all the papers, and I say, okay, submit, and you can put my name as a senior author. Same thing for lifestyle. I would like to, you know, sit at the beach and not have to do anything, but that's not realistic. So you have to think about what is a realistic thing, what's your ideal job, what's your dream job, and how do you get that done? I'm not sure if I mentioned, but kind of my research area of interest is in fatty liver and NASH, and so I spend a lot of time talking about nutrition and exercise. And so you've probably heard the term before, well, your plate is full, you shouldn't take on anything else. And so the way I kind of conceptualize what brings me joy and what do I also have to address but doesn't necessarily bring me joy is what's on my plate. So this is my plate, and in terms of my professional life, I really enjoy research. And as I said, right now, half of my time I spend in clinical research, so that takes up a big portion of my professional life. As I said, the other part of my job that I really like, that obviously, you know, you went to medical school, you're a physician, or you're a patient care provider, is clinical care. So that takes up another very large portion of my professional life. The other things I really enjoy doing in terms of my professional life but don't necessarily, right now, get to take up a ton of my time, I really like teaching the fellows and the residents. I also like to mentor, so that's something that I've identified as important to me, and I try to dedicate time to it, but I also recognize that it can't take up that much of my time. Similarly, advocacy, both patient and providers, I'm really interested in women in medicine, and so that's part of what I do too. But again, I recognize right now that I can't take up too much of my time. So now we switch over more to my personal life, and fun fact, having a six-, four-, and two-year-old take up a lot of time. So family does take up a big proportion of that part of my plate right now. The other thing, as I said, I really like NAFLD and NASH, and what I've come to learn is being able to exercise, being able to eat healthy, makes me very, very happy. So if I don't get exercise, I get pretty grumpy, and so that's important for me to try and work into my weekly or daily schedule. And I know it's not going to be the same every day, but again, that's a priority. It brings me joy, so it fits on my plate. Again, I spend a lot of time with little humans, and so I try and balance that out with trying to make sure that my friends and other personal relationships, I incorporate that too, because otherwise, when I hang out with someone, I'm going to be cutting their food in front of them and trying to feed them. So I try and balance that out too. And then lastly, everyone hears the term self-care. It can be kind of overwhelming because nobody really knows what that means, but it is important. So that takes different forms to different people, but it is a very important part to have. So even if you're not taking care of your family or doing your work stuff, you need to have time to yourself, whatever that looks like. Okay, so you've identified what brings you joy, and you've identified the things that ideally you can get rid of. And so from there, you really want to declutter and delegate. So discard whatever you can, acknowledging that obviously some things you can't get rid of. I'd like to never have to write an epic note ever again, but that's just not going to happen. The other thing that's very, very hard, particularly for people early in their career, is practicing the art of saying no. So depending on where you are, you may be asked to write a review or a co-author a paper from a senior mentor. And you know, a lot of those times, it's a great opportunity, and you should really take them up on that. But at a certain point, if you're continuously asking to do things that aren't necessarily in your area of interest, or aren't necessarily going to build your career, you really have to, at a certain part, learn how to say no. Because if you keep taking on these tasks, eventually you're not going to be able to have time to do the things that you really want to do, or that are going to get you on the path to where you want to go. The other thing that Marie Kondo really focuses on is to donate things when you're able to. So again, this kind of relates to the other two points. So say you're invited to write a review. It's not really your area of interest, but you have a colleague who's really interested in that. Maybe that's something that you can offer to them. Or maybe you have another peer that would be interested in co-writing with you. You're not necessarily completely getting it off your plate, but it's a way to share some of the workload. Related to that, it's really helpful to learn how to delegate whenever possible. And so again, depending on your situation, if there's certain administrative tasks that you don't necessarily have to do, delegate that. When it comes to personal life, again, this is just my own experience, I'm not very good at cleaning, and I don't like cleaning. And now that I'm attending, I delegate the tasks. So twice a month, I have someone clean my house. I don't like grocery shopping, and so I order my groceries, but then somebody delivers them. It's little things like that. So I don't have to worry about it, and I delegate my tasks. So again, depending on your situation, your interests, try and remove anything off your plate that doesn't bring you joy and that you don't necessarily have to do yourself within your means. The other thing that's really important here is a picture of some of our fellows at Michigan. Most programs that have fellows, you know, these fellows are very interested, they're very capable, they're very motivated. And so again, whether it's donating things to them, delegating tasks to them, they usually are very, very interested to work with you, so long as you're able, as Elliot said, to kind of serve as a good mentor to them. So make sure that you use resources that you have, because very often whenever I've asked a fellow to do something, they're super excited to take on the opportunity. And then really, after you've done all these things, you've identified your priorities, you've decluttered, you've delegated, you really just then have to acknowledge, okay, what's left, and you really have to own that. This is what I have to do, and how are you going to do that? And so this is kind of a scary screenshot of how I organize my research projects. So I color-code them, and then I have each titled the paper, and I set deadlines for myself. And because I'm not good at keeping deadlines, Anna Locke is responsible for holding me to the deadlines. So again, whatever approach works for you, you just kind of know what you have to do, and then try and organize yourself such that you can get it done. I think the other really important thing, again, irrespective of kind of who you are, where you are in life, is really to have a village around you. So from a professional standpoint, it's been really important for me to have people, especially fresh out of fellowship, that can serve as clinical mentors. So what does that mean? You're now going to be practicing on your own, there are going to be situations where you aren't really sure if you're doing the right thing, you have to be able to have people that you feel comfortable asking, hey, can I talk to you about this case, what would you do here, etc. Same thing, you know, research mentors, you want to have senior mentors, but you also want to be able to have access to people that you can just kind of run ideas by. I think it's really important to have a good set of peers, so I've been very fortunate that I have a lot of other young clinical faculty in hepatology who are kind of going through the same journey with me, so it's not uncommon that I'll stop by Elliott's office and see if he's there and ask him some crazy questions, and he's always very kind to listen to me. And then lastly, mentees, too. I think it's important to not always only feel like you're always looking for advice, but to serve as a mentor to somebody else, and so if that's something that you're interested in, I know personally it's brought me a lot of kind of joy and fulfillment. And so this is just kind of a screenshot of a lot of the female faculty and staff at University of Michigan that I've had the pleasure of being able to work with, and they've really kind of been my village, particularly because I don't have any family in the Midwest, and so all my family's in LA. I shed a tear for that. So it's been good to have these people that I can know that are always in my corner. And then similarly, obviously, personally, that's going to be important, too, and so whether, you know, it's your family, your friends, for me, obviously, child care is very important. And then people outside of medicine, too, I think also really keep you grounded, so, you know, it's important to kind of keep that perspective because they can give you a different sense of kind of where you are in life, how you're doing, give you some feedback. And so this is a picture of me and my mom. She's kind of been an amazing person. So she has eight kids, so whenever I'm kind of trying to complain about my situation, she's like, I don't want to hear it. But at the same time, she's always been very supportive, so. And then I'll just close by saying I think we don't focus on this enough. You know, we chose a very challenging path, and you've already been very successful and proven that you have the capacity to be successful, so I think it's really important to make sure that you take time to be kind to yourself. At the same time, make sure you can't always be super kind to yourself, so you still have to hold yourself accountable. But I think that that's something that, you know, as you go through this journey, give yourself credit that you've done a lot and that if you keep down this path that you'll ultimately end up where you want to be. So as an illustration of this, so as I said, these are my three kids, and this is on Halloween. Does anyone know what I am? I'm Mommy Shark. My youngest is obsessed with Baby Shark, and if you're wondering, the costumes did play the song on repeat. So thank you very much.

University of Michigan

transplant hepatology

single mom

work-life balance

self-care