Women's Dermatologic Society

  From Dr. Morayo Adisa Staggered employee schedules that consider individual requests and allow for reasonable accommodations. Incentivized subsidized gym/wellness center memberships to promote healthy living and well-being. Mindfulness and respect for boundaries with after-hours texting/communication to maintain a clear distinction between work and personal time.   From Dr. Shawna Flanagan I am a small practice owner with multiple working moms as employees. We are a tight knit group, and everyone does their part to help each other out when things happen with the children. We have employees who stay later so the working moms can pick up their children from school or daycare. When a school play or concert occurs during the day at short notice, everyone chips in and picks up the slack if an employee must slip out of the office for a few hours. Over the years we have had children in the office for short stints when childcare fall through for someone. I think provid...

Ten Tips for Maintaining Work-Life Balance Special thanks to Drs. Anna Karp and Mara C. Weinstein Velez for their invaluable tips on how to keep work-life balance.   Take care of yourself first physically, mentally, emotionally in whatever way best fits your lifestyle. This makes the time spent with patients and family more fulfilling. Be present at home and do the same at work.  Sometimes things come up (e.g., patient emergency while you're with your kids), but most of the time you can separate the two.  I've changed my mind set over time from thinking about how hard it is to do both well to thinking about the two roles enriching each other. When you are at work, you can recharge for parenting and vice versa.    Set a time frame for working from home.  Whether it’s finishing charts or virtual patients, putting a hard stop on work tasks will make family time more valuable. I try my best to not bring work home. Being home with young kids is like a second job...

  From Dr. Shawna Flanagan I think achieving career balance is a lifetime juggle! I have been out of dermatology residency for more than 25 years now. At times throughout my career, I have donated a lot more of my time to my children and husband and felt guilty about my career. At other times I have done the opposite and felt guilty about my family. As the late great Barbara Walters was once quoted, “Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she does not is someone I admire but have never met.” From Dr. Mona Sadeghpour As women we are constantly judged for the type of physician, mother, spouse, or leader that we are. We are judged if we work too much or too "little”. These narratives often impart guilt on our conscience and unnecessary stress that we don't always address openly. The truth is that no one creates our life or productivity narratives, but us. Studies have shown that even when women and men dermatologists work similar hours and are "equal...

  By the WDS Practice Advisory Committee  From Dr. Mona Sadeghpour: I am part of a dual physician career household; and juggling house and work responsibilities is a daily challenge. The advice that was given to me during my baby-shower was "hire as much help as you can afford." But sometimes the help you hire ends up not working out. Remaining flexible has been the key to success in our household. When we had to suddenly let our nanny go without advanced planning, we found ourselves without childcare when both of us had to work full time. Thankfully, we were able to transition to a full-time daycare within a couple days (by cold-calling all daycares in the area) where our son has since been wonderfully taken care of since. Children get sick (often), nannies don't work out (sometimes), and life still goes on. Remaining flexible and aiming at over communication with your partner, so you can divide and conquer, is key. And for everything else: "hire as much help as you...

    By Dr. Sara Dill, Dermatologist and Life Coach   What is work-life balance? Do you have it? What’s your reaction when you hear that term? For so many physicians, including us dermatologists, there are very strong and often-negative reactions to the phrase “work-life balance.”   What if defining work-life balance is actually pretty simple? I like to define work-life balance as simply creating a healthy balance between your working life and your personal life. Notice I said creating and not having or finding. Work-life balance doesn’t just HAPPEN to us. We don’t just FIND it one day. Right? What happens to us typically is the opposite: our work life takes over and our personal life shrinks to almost nothing. I first experienced encroachment of my work life into my personal life in medical school and then it continued in residency and in my first few years of work as an attending. Add in other personal responsibilities like children, family, community, etceter...