Clinicians & Learning for Life

This coming January will mark the two-year anniversary of my newsletter – Career Transition for Doctors.

After publishing 17 newsletters on various topics that affect physicians and clinicians of other stripes, I have decided to take a pause on publishing new content in the newsletter. Perhaps I have covered and reflected on a core set of experiences, transitions and issues that shaped my career as a physician for more than two decades. As we are ready to celebrate yet another new year, I have to do some soul-searching and start a different newsletter.

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This will be my last piece in this series, and I am thinking how to end on a positive note. When I conceived the idea of this newsletter, my vision was to share my experiences and perspectives as a physician as I have gone through different phases in my professional journey, including my foray into administrative work. I hope my stories and reflections struck some chords with some of my readers.

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With this writing exercise (mostly monthly), I believe my writing and the craft of storytelling have improved. Just like many things in life, writing can only be improved with trials and feedback. Furthermore, writing about my personal stories and sharing my reflections have been cathartic and quite frankly, relaxing at times. With my busy professional and personal life, I looked forward to the end of the month when I was going to type a short perspective about my life as a physician.

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On this piece and as I draw an end to my first newsletter in LinkedIn, I contemplate on a topic that is formative and focuses on self-development. As physicians (and clinicians of all stripes) we are learning, like it or not, on a constant basis. Yes, I will be talking about learning! No, I am not just thinking about clinical learning and CME; I am rather implying on all aspects of learning – from our patients, colleagues, work environment, from other disciplines, and of course, from our own actions and behaviors. It is fitting then to share my perspectives and experiences on learning.

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My first big learning moment was during my residency when I learned about how to work with nurses, therapists, social workers, and other team members, including our front-desk clerks for each medicine floors. As a foreign medical graduate and having been trained in Bangladesh, I was not accustomed to having all these professionals at my disposal; the nurses that I worked with were merely doing their standard chores - putting in IV lines, dispensing medications, and jotting down vital signs on a flimsy paper board. There was a single social worker for several medical and surgical units, and she was very difficult to get hold of when I needed her. But, as a trainee in the U.S., I learned how to work with social workers, therapists, and nurses. It took me a few months to understand how they serve patients in an acute care hospital and in outpatient clinics. Clearly, that was my orientation to a health care system (service learning) and my learning continued during my residency and as an attending in subsequent years.

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Fast forward ten more years, and now I have been asked to set up a population health program for a group of primary care physicians. I needed to learn about databases, attribution, quality improvement methodology, Excel spreadsheet, and creating fancy reports. I think I would call this learning as a more technical, “backend” understanding of practice-level data and interpretation. At first, I was unsure if I would like it or not. At the end, the learning gave me a boost when I was creating my promotion file; I could list that experience as an accomplishment.

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In subsequent years, as I have worked across health systems and insurers, I had to learn on topics and content because they were required or simply needed to better manage operations, quality, or human resources. I did not know that I had to go through all these seemingly non-clinical and “boring” stuff as a physician. Some of these are invaluable skills as I was able to advance my career and take on an executive role in the managed care environment.

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Even if you do not want to be a people-manager, learning about some of these non-clinical topics could set you apart to do amazing things with your career. Learning about business and legal sides of practice may come handy if one tries to set up a private practice or take an entrepreneurial role. Ultimately, it is your choice. Some clinicians are simply happy with their core clinical role, and that it is also perfectly alright.

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In recent years, I enjoyed learning about how to estimate financial risks for an insured population and set up models for clinical and financial risk estimations. Of course, I need to mention about my exposure to lean principles and how I was able to use some of those principles at my workplaces.

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Last but not the least, I am also focusing on self-development and trying to understand how my implicit biases, body language, communication may impact people around me. I know we have read volumes on emotional intelligence, self-help, and leadership, but understanding about one’s emotions, behaviors, and communication in a professional environment is daunting for sure. Perhaps, I need a coach to learn about my “blind sides” and polish my persona as I continue my journey as an executive. I am also not saying that everyone needs a coach. Learning about emotional intelligence, nevertheless, has been intriguing and thought-provoking.

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My advice is to my physician friends and other clinicians is: “Have an open mind about learning”. From an evolutionary standpoint, we humans survived for our learning and adaptation. Likewise, our clinician community will continue to maintain their professional aptitude and identity by embracing change. We know we are being faced with new knowledge or challenges. We can serve our patients better if we acknowledge change and have an open mind for learning. We owe it to our profession!

Happy reading and thank you for subscribing my newsletter!

Emran

December 8, 2023

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