[RxForSanityeNews]

The flagship edition of RxForSanityeNews contains the feature "What's YOUR Wiggler", about your early entry into the medical professional world, a great Sanity Tip and a dose of Humor!

**Feature: What's Your Wiggler? **

Are you well along the path you began years ago as a Health Care Professional, now questioning your next steps? Is there a chance the career you made a major commitment to years ago now leaves you discouraged, concerned or in doubt? Is it worth the daily effort to you now: angry patients, endless night shifts, on-call duty, missing important family events? Things get worse; more managed health care regulations, lawsuits, cost cutting efforts.

There is an old medical saying: "all bleeding stops eventually". Either we heal or we die. For those of us mired in the confusion mentioned above, dying equates to continuing on our same path, disliking our career, colleagues and patients. Perhaps even quitting, walking away from all the years of schooling, training, the long hours, the investment and sacrifices we made years ago.

The other choice...we can heal ourselves. We can examine all the various aspects of our lives: our practice, our patients, workloads, the personal choices we are making about our personal lives, our families and relationships with others.

Monthly, in this space, you will find exercises to challenge these areas of your professional and personal lives. Some are easier than others, and the difficulty you may encounter in a few should signal you are close to some painful truths. You may even encounter the need to commit to a life-changing, different way of doing something.

We will try to leave no medical professional behind, from medical receptionist to surgeon. In this spirit, we shall use the HCP as the acronym for Health Care Professional, and call ourselves 'hiccoughs'.

Do your 'ears still wiggle' in your daily life as a hiccough? In my family, we know what this means. To hear my mother explain it, if your ears wiggle you are in your own unique place in the universe, your true spot! She was a realtor at the time, and would not sell you a home if you could not say your 'ears wiggled' as you walked up the front walk! How about you? Is medicine still your 'wiggler'?

Here is your first exercise: Take time now to think back to the dawn of your career, when it all was new and exciting to you. When did you decide health care was the field for you? What made you consider this difficult path, and how did you decide what field of medicine was for you? What brought you happiness and excitement in the beginning?

Let yourself slip back to that person, and compare it to the hiccough you are today. Do these things still apply? Can you rejuvenate that love for your profession again? Or is medicine something you can no longer identify with? Now, consider what you do, and what you said you loved, above. Maybe you can get back to the parts of the profession you enjoy. It could be as simple as going to your supervisors with an informal proposal for a shift in your duties, your scheduling, the environment you spend your time in. Perhaps it will be something as big as changing jobs back to the thing you used to enjoy.

We cannot supply your answers for you. We can, however, encourage you to explore, and consider the possibilities.

**Comments or personal 'Tips' from this month's exercise? Write me at PLRaymond@RxForSanity.com.

** This Month's Sanity Tip **

Grumpy, Sleepy or Happy Doc? No, it's not 4/7th of the popular, but Disney trademarked, vertically challenged working folk. A recently published study (don't know the source but it wasn't the prestigious NEJM) related hours of sleep to maximum 'happy level'. Participants were asked how happy they were on a 100-point scale, and how many hours of sleep they had gotten the night before.

The surprising results? Sleep directly correlated with happiness level, with a loss of 18% of 'happy' for each hour of sleep less than eight. Thus, at seven hours, you are limited to 82% of your maximum capacity for happiness...five hours limits you to 46% of your personal maximal 'happy'. Less sleep than that? Well, new baby, or bad on-call night, tough shift change or late night carousing..how happy were you the next day? How happy could YOU be with enough zzzzz's? Just sleep on it..........

** A Little Light Humor **

A friend of mine works as a nurse in a hospital. Recently she was caring for a woman and asked, "So how's your breakfast this morning?" "It's very good except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get used to the taste", the patient replied. The nurse then asked to see the jelly. The woman produced a foil packet labeled "KY Jelly". I kid you not.