Traveling in Medical School
Looking back on my MD/PhD experience, I feel fortunate that I was able to sneak in a fair amount of travel throughout my training. Generally our trips were small, quick, and fierce... like when we did Disney in a weekend! Or our annual trip to upper Michigan in the winter for on or around MLK day! Or finally our weekend roadtrips or flights back to Wisconsin to visit family.
Paul and I took a leap of faith moving out to Pittsburgh for residency and our MD/PhD program(s). We were excited by the anticipation of adventure and great training, but we were thinking pretty hard about how life would be now that we were 11+ hour drive and two flights away from our family.
At first we were overwhelmed. Paul was under a lot of pressure and clinical responsibilities as an intern (now that you know what this means)! He had long day shifts, overnight shifts 24 hour calls, teaching, and studying. He was very busy, and his schedule wasn't flexible because the hospital, his patients, and his colleagues depended on him. I was starting medical school and still getting my grove to figure out what, when, what, where and how best to study the massive amount of material that was coming to me through the med school curriculum. So initially we did not set aside anytime to travel - weekends were focused on catching up on school, life, food, laundry, etc.
However, a few months into my first year of medical school my brother passed away. I was devastated, but fortunately I had just recently spent some travel time with him at home, and we were in touch regularly through email. After that happened, I made a promise with my parents that we would see each other regularly. Then after my son was born, we promised to see each other monthly - and we did!! (And I even did okay in medical school)
Tips for working travel into your education, your life, and your work:
Efficiency. Develop these skills as soon as you can. They can be learned.
Treat medical school like a 9AM -6PM job. When you're at work, work. When you're at home, be present with your family and have faith in yourself that you've put in the time you need.
Don't be confused by your friends and other medical students who say they "studied all weekend"... So, they didn't eat? No laundry? They didn't pee?? I assure you that people differ - some students put in more time during the week, while others socialize during the week and cram on the weekends. Be confident in YOUR study strategy and don't compare yourself to others.
Get your academic schedule, and responsibly plan travel around requirements. I am proud to say that even with all of my weekend travel, there was only one instance where I can remember being stranded due to travel and I had to miss a required day of class (over 8 years!) I couldn't make it there regardless of if I rented a car and drove - it was hopeless and I was at the mercy of the travel industry. I tried.
Make it a priority. I love the tip from Laura Vanderkam's book, 168 Hours that you shouldn't say you "can't" do something, but instead say "it's not a priority". This helps put time into perspective and definitely helped me to rationalize traveling into my schedule.
Regardless of how much you want to travel away from your city, these tips can help you strive for better work life integration, whether that may be travel, kids, spouse, biking, marathons or all of the above!