Category: Office Politics/Leadership Development

August 20, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m tired this morning. I finished a Middle-Management Power Point Update I have to deliver at 730AM. I worked on it during the weekend, most of Tuesday, and finished it yesterday and practiced. I also worked like everyone else with a full day of clinic. I had an abnormal orthopedic MRI result in and I’m a bit frustrated. I had been up all night worrying about this particular patient and had sent them in for emergent care and specialty consult weeks ago. Now my suspected diagnosis is being considered weeks after the fact. The story is still unfolding, but it’s still frustrating. I texted several people yesterday to put my patient forefront in their minds. Sometimes as a primary care pediatrician that is what we have to do, just remind other people that our patients are important.

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July 31, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s 535AM and I’ve been up since 4am, and already sent all the work emails I needed and deployed assignments to the future leaders I am helping to guide. I sent reminders to the last stragglers in our department who are committee chairs to submit their committee descriptions. One stellar pediatrician sent a one-liner and I replied back “I do insist. I want people to take credit for what they do. I think you do more than that. Can you come up with 1-2 more lines? I want you to imagine what you want to do in this role as well. It’s actually a secret self-reflective process for the department – if that makes any sense. I want us to all psychoanalyze our professional lives.” To the ones who sent complete descriptions, I sent positive notes back. And then there are the others that sent over-blown descriptions of essentially defunct committees. I’m a new kind of Assistant Boss, non-judmental. We all live in our imaginary worlds, especially me.

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July 30, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I posted a picture of a cooking error I made yesterday. I mixed up tajin for tahini. The “hummus” still tasted good and it was gone at dinner. The kids got fiber albeit from “hummus” that was runny with nothing more than pureed chickpeas and spices. It was actually probably healthier because there was no oil. Mr. Plastic Picker thought is was funny and I laughed as well, but I probably overshared and put it on Instagram. When I posted it I was laughing, but looking for “likes” from the 1000 or so connections I’ve made. The comments from those I know eventhough they were just laughing emojis stung a bit for various reasons.

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July 27, 2020

by drplasticpicker

We have HMO Family Practice residents that rotate through our clinic for their outpatient pediatric rotations. It’s their inauguration into the residency program, and we have the honor to teach them. I helped start this clinic site when it started with the first class about 8 years ago. My old mentor and I were the ones who developed and refined the lecture topics, schedule templates, developed how the rotation was organized and first started the residency breakfasts. As with most things, I’ve since handed it over to Dr. AF as I’ve moved onto other middle management roles.

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July 25, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I had heard about GRIT here and there. Mr. Plastic Picker and I send our kids to a fancy prep school. Mr. Plastic Picker had been a scholarship recipient from the top prep school in his area that was a feeder into Princeton, and he loved his experience. When we had our two children, it was one of those non-neogtiable things. He wanted our children to go to a similar independent school. As two MDs, we could afford it. As a product of a strong suburban public school program, it has always felt odd to have my kids in private school. They have done well though and more importantly they have strong connections in their school community, so we have committed to having them finish their education there. If you asked me to total the costs, I think I’d have a heart attack. But we can afford it because we still have a savings rate of over 50% our net income and we both work. Private school is our one indulgence and I actually try to dissuade other parents from it.

As a parent I’ve heard of the idea of Grit around the internet and school emails. Honestly, I just ignored those emails and discussions. It seemed to me the only people who talked about Grit were not living very hard-working lives. But then this morning I visited Retireby40’s blog, and he reposted an article about his Grit score and I was intrigued. https://retireby40.org/what-if-you-have-no-grit/ I took the test, I got a 5 out of 5! I am not surprised. I have a lot of Grit, as do most of my siblings.

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July 13, 2020

by drplasticpicker

This week, I have a big work project I need to complete. Previously I would have just started. I’m a relatively efficient person and like to check things off a To-Do list. But the wonderful thing about being Assistant Boss and being mid-career, is that I can pick and choose my tasks. This task is important and needs to be done well. I need to finish our Departmental Leadership Grid/Flow Visual that describes the current state of leadership development, and how we reimagine the leadership development process.

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June 27, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Dr. Plastic Picker is quite pleased with myself this morning. My friend Dr. Jill Gustafson had commented after I posted on my personal facebook page about Virtual Meeting Fatigue, that we should make up a meeting lingo bingo game. At one of my virtual vaccine meetings someone said the word “STAKE HOLDER” and that put me over the edge. I muted the meeting and started taking selfies of myself, and then took a nap. When I woke up and unmuted the mic, and the meeting was still ongoing and the lingo was continuing – although I did not hear the word STAKE HOLDER again.

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I recently had a 25 day blogging streak. I wasn’t sure if I would just edit the site versus write another blog, but I found a recent gift from my friend Dr. Jill Gustafson inspiring https://drplasticpicker.com/dr-jill-gustafson-environmentally-minded-pediatrician-4/ so I decided to continue my streak. I’ve had many happy moments that I was thinking of sharing as a blog post. But the beauty of yesterday was almost too much so I will give you just glimpses of our day yesterday.

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June 25, 2020

by drplasticpicker

There is a classic medical traininig American book called the “House of God” by an author who wrote under the pseudonym Samuel Shem. Published in 1978, it is a fictionalized rendition of a group of interns as they go through their dehumanizing medical intern year. If you are considering medical school, I highly recommend it. You need to know the history of our profession. In some sad ways it is still very accurate. I forgot now how much that book struck me, and that likely much of the way I name things on this blog is influenced by that novel. That book is set at Beth Israel Deaconness Hospital, one of the teaching hospital systems within the Harvard system. I trained at another Harvard teaching hospital that I call Mans Greatest Hospital, and all of us who trained there still harbour that belief.

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June 18, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I have had a slight headache since yesterday and even this morning. I’m sitting at the kitchen table a bit earlier than usual at 503AM. I made myself some coffee and took 1000mg tylenol. Headaches always worry me. Neither Mr. Plastic Picker and I are prone to getting headaches, and when either of us gets a headache – I know something is off. I even wrote two posts about headaches for both of us. Here is the one about Mr. Plastic Picker https://drplasticpicker.com/mr-plastic-picker-had-a-headache/ and here is reflection on my previous tension headaches https://drplasticpicker.com/tension-headaches-drplasticpicker-cures-myself/. Blogging helps with the headaches as does walking along the beach.

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