During the clinical years of medical school, trying to juggle learning in a practical manner with the increased emotional and personal toll of being with patients and hospital teams in a new environment can prove to be difficult. It can be easy to lose track of your personal life and hard to switch off your brain.
If you’re anything like me, you obsess over clinical cases and forget you have friends and family and hobbies. When this happens it takes a toll on our mental health, which then impacts our ability to learn and process information. Exploring what methods of work-life balance work for you is important as it changes depending on each placement, location, team, and stage of the year you’re in. I loved medical team placements the most, so I had to allocate less space for ‘me time’ because I genuinely enjoyed my days, however, for some placements, especially surgical team placements, I found I had to take more time for myself resting and debriefing with friends and family.
