You’ll be wishing you were back at the practice in no time.
Burning out? Maybe it’s time to do something outside of medicine!
Professor Candid has some ideas.
1. Spend time with your family
Ruin a perfectly good day out by taking your children with you. They’ll complain bitterly during the car ride and when you get there they’ll complain that the beach is too hot and too sandy and that the sea is too wet and too salty. And no, we’re not having another icecream and no, you’ve just been to the toilet – stop prodding your sister with that really sharp stick. Or is that a … mediaeval pike you’ve got? Where on earth did you get that from?
2. DIY
There’s nothing quite like spending your weekend rewiring your house or repointing the roof, is there? Bear in mind that home improvements usually involve a confusing trip to Bunnings and that the amount of swearing and drilling you’ll be doing as soon as the sun comes up is a sure way to piss off your entire family – who are still recovering from their trip to the coast – as well as your neighbours who already hate you.
3. Music
Music has the power to transport and transcend but it can also become a bit of an obsession. Five thousand records isn’t a lot, is it? It is if your wife gives you Saturday afternoon to sort through them all only to find you a few hours later surrounded by empty bottles of Coopers spinning Mr Oizo’s Flat Beat like the world’s shittest DJ.
4. Walking
A good walk is a great way to cleanse the mind and shoulder open the doors to the imagination. You can do anything on a walk, you can imagine what it would be like if you could see with your fingertips or what earth would be like if it were ruled by massive cats, you can even compose a silly piece about what you can do to relax outside of medicine.
5. Sword-fighting
Dressing up as a knight and hitting someone over the head with a blunt axe is about as far away from medicine as you can get. Unless the hilariously named Sir Cumferance accidentally stabs you through the eye with his pike. And then you’ll have to spend eight hours wearing heavy greaves and gauntlets in ED waiting to see a junior doctor who’s probably never treated a knight of the realm before. Just pull the pike out of my face you idiot!
