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Ella Leigh

@ellaleighwrites

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Mom Wife Physician Writer
Sharing a little bit of medicine, mostly motherhood and slowing down to enjoy this little life

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It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

I never had anyone during my training tell me or show me that it’s ok to want to achieve all your goals and then change your priorities…

That being a mom first is not something to be ashamed of. That wanting to protect your evenings and weekends is not something to apologize for. That going to class parties and school dismissal is not something you need an excuse for.

Let’s reimagine together what motherhood in medicine can look like and embrace this chapter. Let’s cheer each other on and change the narrative 🤍 by @ellaleighwrites

Some of us in medicine need permission to dream of the possibilities outside of being trapped in a windowless room, attending meetings we don’t care about, having no autonomy in our clinical care and feeling burned out every single day.

In many cultures, “what do you do for a living?” Is not a typical question in conversation. How would we identify ourselves if our work (and even our family) were not our identity?

Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but I’ve discovered it can include matcha and beach time 😉

What do YOU do for a living? by @ellaleighwrites

I was talking to a younger attending recently and I realized how hesitant she was to just do normal things with her family. Looking at me for permission, that it wasn’t crazy to want to go to a Halloween parade, when her schedule was light.

The other thing is whether we feel guilty for living our lives. For my husband and me, we went on international trips with our infant and toddler. We didn’t work around naps, we didn’t skip restaurants, we didn’t shy away from hikes. Best decisions- no regrets.

It’s so important for those of us who are moms, a bit more mid-career, model how to be a responsible, dedicated clinician and still unabashedly prioritize our family and ourselves.

What kinds of things do you find yourself holding back on because of motherhood? by @ellaleighwrites

There are days I dream of what it might be like to have a day…a week… where I can just focus on being mom. It wasn’t what I expected.

There were so many aspects I loved about it. I didn’t let myself feel guilty for not checking my phone or email. I actually had breakfast with the kids. I went to the park and forgot my phone and I didn’t care.

Somehow at the end of the day, I felt utterly drained and fulfilled at the same time.

And I couldn’t explain to you what I did or why I felt a sense of accomplishment. It felt anti-climactic to explain to anyone else. It felt ordinary to me, but maybe that’s what I need right now. We under estimate ordinary.

But it still struck me how unseen it feels to be a mom, no matter if you have a hyphen at the end of it. Mom in medicine. Working mom. Corporate mom. If I couldn’t answer “what do you do” at the playground… who am I really?

Has anyone transitioned into full-time motherhood from a career in healthcare? What was that experience like? by @ellaleighwrites

Something about a cold, sunny fall morning 🍁

Learning to enjoy the simple pleasures of an ordinary morning as a mom.
Prioritizing routines that are important to me and not habit that impress the world
Realizing I’m so over many performative tasks and feeling so utterly light
Realizing there is so much I want to leave behind but it’s not quite time yet.

But above all, feeling grateful for being where I am in life even if it’s not perfect.

Wishing you beautiful day 🍂 by @ellaleighwrites

Yes I’ll personally call radiology to request that MRI disc, call to remind a patient who no showed 3 times, walk down to clinic to make sure the education pamphlets are replenished.

Some days it feels like we are the team. The job needs to be done but why do I feel like I haven’t done anything at the end of the day? Because maybe the thing I’m good at, the thing I trained for, ends up being just a sliver of my day, just in 15 minute bursts, where I’m making eye contact, thinking deeply, asking questions no one had asked the patient before.

But especially when women strive to protect that time with patients, which sometimes means delegating a task like filing an old chart or clarifying a pharmacy, we are viewed as entitled or difficult to work with.

Physicians don’t mind the hard work. We want to do the work that we are trained to do. People may laugh at the idea that physicians have “deep work”. I think we do- we just don’t get to do it anymore. We also just want everyone else to recognize that and take pride in their roles also. by @ellaleighwrites

I firmly believe this. As much as I talk about travel and blocking your time for vacation, it doesn’t mean as much as making sure your regular day is something you enjoy living.

It’s not about just having vacations or weekends to look forward to (although that’s important!), but rather

1) pockets of time during each day to look forward to
2) day-to-day responsibilities that align with your mission
3) time with people who light you up
4) feeling a sense of control and agency in the work that you’re doing
5) feeling forward progress and a sense of accomplishment

Maximizing for these things has helped me make better decisions about new projects and really battle burnout as a practicing clinician.

What can you do this week to maximize one of these aspects of work life? 🤍 by @ellaleighwrites

Slow mornings… but first, tea… 🫖

I missed having rituals. I got used to rushing through life during med school, residency, early motherhood.

But slowly, I’m adding back in rituals I love- making tea, making breakfast as a family, after dinner bike rides.

What are your favorite family or personal rituals? by @ellaleighwrites

Just an ordinary day.

Somehow it does get easier and I’m thankful for remote options so the work doesn’t pile up and the most urgent patients still get access to me.

But I do wonder what it would feel like to close my laptop and take an actual day off when my kid is sick.

It’s a fine balance when you’re a physician with so many people who rely on you. You don’t want to disappoint patients or delay any care. Used in the right way, the choice to make yourself available to patients in a limited way in these situations can be very valuable. This is not for productivity, but for patient safety and patient care.

And I still get to make soup for my child, take her temperature, read to her or just let her sleep next to me on the couch.

These are the messy days of motherhood in medicine, but this is a version I can live with.

What do you do when your child has a sick day? by @ellaleighwrites

What does that even MEAN? Keep reading 👇

1. Know how to answer this simple questions without using your profession: “tell me about yourself”. It’s a mindset shift. It’s an identity reframe.

2. Build a rich life outside of your work hours. Do you have a hobby? Are you cultivating your friendships and family relationships? How are you growing in skills unrelated to medicine?

3. Use your PTO. Without guilt. Well, try to.

4. Set clear boundaries around the work day start times and end times- this might sound impossible for those of us not in shift work specialities, but you can maximize time during the day, and protect your hours at home. Spend 30 minutes to answer low stakes emails. Set boundaries for who needs an appt and not a detailed portal message response.

5. Have an end-of-day wind-down ritual. One last check of the inbox and emails, make a list of top 3 priorities for tomorrow, tidy up the desk. Turn off the lights and shut the door.

6. Pare down the phone notifications. Almost nothing is an actual sound notification. Everything that needs to be a notification is only a banner notification. Definitely no social media or email notifications. Special rings for my husband, parents and sisters.

7. Grey color filter when I’m at home. I’m actually working toward grey color filter while I’m at work too- so I really get to deep work, which means I get stuff done and leave on time.

8. No checking messages on weekends or evenings. (Is this controversial?)

9. Build in small moments each week and each month that you look forward to. A lunch date with a friend. Getting ice cream on your way home. A day trip with your kids on the weekend. A writing retreat. A painting class.

I love this new adventure of reimagining a life in medicine that doesn’t mean abandoning my career but also doesn’t mean a life of unending sacrifice and burnout. by @ellaleighwrites

It might surprise some people, but most of my colleagues had a full-time nanny/mother’s helper for their kids through high school. It gave them something priceless for any full-time dual working couple- peace of mind.

How my husband and I arranged childcare through the years👇
- from when my older one was an infant until she was 10 (and my younger one was 8), we had a full-time nanny from 7:30 am until 6 pm
- no planned weekend babysitters- we often relied on family who lived close by
- once my kids were both in full-time school (kindergarten and 2nd grade) we still kept our nanny full-time because we needed reliable help on sick days, school holidays and for summer camps.
- we decreased her hours around the time my kids were in 2nd and 4th grade mostly because of the need for chaperoning to afterschool activities.
- during this time, our nanny had to move out of state to help family for several months and during this time, we found a part time babysitter that worked for our kids’ schedules
- this year, we have 2 part time babysitters to help with the different after school activities.

How do you arrange childcare while building your career? Let’s share and learn! 👇 by @ellaleighwrites

There was a time I forgot I had a life outside of medicine. Hopefully this is a reminder for anyone who is still in the thick of it- you deserve to build a life that you enjoy waking up to, and if that means being present for the ordinary moments (baking pumpkin bread and going for a coffee run with your little one) or the extraordinary (international trip to have sushi at a Japanese fish market) - go for it ☺️

🍣🌊🎃☕️❄️🌴 by @ellaleighwrites