Burnout in Medical School: Less Hustle, Better Time Management

Pooja: Okay. So, back to what we were talking about, when we’re talking about like motivation and burnout, and you alluded to it a little bit when you were talking about how interventional radiology is one of the more competitive specialties to match into. It sounds like there was a lot of pressure associated with that.

Camden: Yeah, but as with all things that are pressure, 90% of that pressure is self-imposed pressure. Even if it’s extrinsic pressure, you know, I have colleagues who are like their parents really want them to become a cardiologist or something. I’m lucky. I come from a family with no doctors, so they have no clue even what interventional radiology is.

No one will judge you differently depending on whatever your path takes you. And so I think it’s it’s more of like realizing that it’s you pressuring yourself. But the big thing is that you need to recognize that the pressure to get into a certain specialty is 99% internal.

Pooja: The path to becoming a doctor is a whole range of things: exciting, confusing, anxiety-inducing, and gratifying, probably all at the same time. And the truth is that no matter how isolating it may feel, you’re not in it alone. Welcome to Pursuit of Practice, your go-to space for expert advice, real stories, and the kind of support that shows you what trusting the process actually looks like.

Welcome back to Pursuit of Practice. Whether you’re a pre-med just starting to dip your toes into the world of medicine or a med student already deep in the grind, this episode is for you. We all know that med school is demanding: studying for exams, keeping up with rotations, and trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life. But what if you could navigate it all without feeling constantly overwhelmed? The truth is I don’t really know if that’s possible, but we’re going to talk about that today. Today, we are diving into time management strategies that can help you not only survive but thrive in this fast-paced journey and adapt to whenever you feel overwhelmed. For our pre-med listeners, we’ll cover practical advice for building a solid foundation before medical school, so you’re ready to take on the challenges ahead. And for those already in medical school, we will dig deep into techniques that really balance your academic workload, self-care, and personal relationships without burning out.

Today, I am joined by Camden MacDowell. He is an interventional radiology resident who’s been through it all. Camden grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and went to Emory University in Georgia for undergrad before completing his PhD and postdoc fellowship in neuroscience at Princeton University. He then earned the title of being a double doctor after getting an MD from Rutgers. While being a resident, because he clearly mastered the time management game, he has been working at Blueprint for over 4 years and has been widely engaged in medical education programming and served as a senior tutor for the USMLE Step exams.

He can be described as someone who is disciplined, clever, compassionate, and on top of everything else he’s doing, he is a dedicated father. He values mentoring learners as they embark on their journey to becoming a doctor and has a wealth of advice to share, from structuring your day to staying mentally healthy during this intense journey. And so whether you’re planning ahead or are knee-deep in the trenches of medical school, stay tuned to hear how you can master time management and set yourself up for success, both academically and personally. Camden, thank you so much for joining us.

Camden: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Pooja: Amazing. So let’s just dive right into it. So first, I kind of want to talk about personal experiences and challenges. Can you describe, to the best of your ability, what your first few weeks of medical school was like and how you kind of handled that workload?

Camden: Yeah, it’s kind of crazy to think that at this point that was over 10 years ago.

Pooja: Whoa.

Camden: And, yeah. Yeah, the MD PhD does take a while. It was 10 years ago. It was before COVID. It was before a lot of changes happened in the system. But I think I think a lot of the things that I learned right off the bat still ring true for me at least to this day. And, you know, they use the proverb like, you know, you’re drinking from a fire hose when you first started off medical school. It was totally different than college. I had to relearn how I learn basically.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: And one of the biggest parts of that was time management and thinking about how to approach this infinite amount of knowledge that I need to know in a way that was efficient, effective, and also preserved my own mental health.

Pooja: Right, right. And I know I’ve heard the proverb, if you will, of drinking from a fire hose. And truthfully, I think it’s accurate, and I feel like the first couple of weeks can be really overwhelming for a lot of people. And I’m curious for you, were there any surprises that you experienced during those first few weeks?

Camden: Yeah, I think the surprise for me was just… I’m going to extend it out for like the first two months, because the first couple weeks are orientation, they’re taking it easy on you a little bit, and then they’re like, “Oh, hey, like, pedal to the metal. Here’s all this information that you’ve not thought about, about the Krebs cycle and all this other stuff since your, you know, second-year biology course in college.” And what sticks out to me in hindsight is it was a really nice taste of medicine is different, and it’s not college anymore. You’ve got to study differently, and you have to figure out the time management skills, frankly. I know that’s the title of the podcast, but frankly, you have to figure out the time management to be able to internalize this knowledge in an effective, efficient way.

Pooja: Yeah. No, absolutely. I feel like it’s a learning curve for sure. And I think something that I think you’re speaking to is that not every day is going to be a day where you’ve mastered it, but it seems like it is a journey to kind of figure out how exactly to do that.

Camden: There’s a quote that you just triggered in my mind by saying that. It’s from Dr. Glaucomflecken, the, you know, TikTok personality.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: And he has a skit that is It applies to residents, but I think it applies just as appropriately to first-year med students and those starting clerkships. It’s a little crass, but basically every day is like, “Did I suck today?” And usually the answer is yes. But did I suck less than yesterday? And that’s the key. Every day you want to leave the hospital being like, “I wasn’t the best, but I did better than yesterday.” And I think that’s a good thing to kind of instill in you, particularly as someone who’s pretty early on in residency.

Pooja: Right. Right. No, absolutely. I completely agree with that, and I feel like I don’t know that quote, but I love Dr. Glaucomflecken. If he ever listens to this, please join our show. But yeah, no, I completely I completely agree. I guess for you, because at this point you’ve gone through a ton of school and you’re going through another transition period because you’re in residency now, looking back, what were some of the mistakes that you made early on when trying to balance studies and life? Was there anything that you feel like you wish you had done differently?

Camden: Yes, there was something I learned very early on. When you enter med school, you’re surrounded by these very smart people who have all had very different experiences than you. Maybe they went to, you know, premier institutions or not premier institutions, who knows. They all have their own study habits. But one mistake I made that I think a lot of folks make is you know, comparing yourself to your peers.

Pooja: Right.

Camden: Particularly when it comes to time management. And like, “Oh, they’re studying all day, every day. Jeez. Like, how do I keep up? How do I how do I match that energy?” And particularly speaking to someone who at that point was, you know, already married and was thinking about starting a family, it’s like, how do I compete for lack of a better term, even though it wasn’t a competitive environment.

Pooja: Yeah, yeah.

Camden: What I realized was, and I think one of the best things in the early years of med school is I treated it like a job. I worked from, you know, 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., but once I was done, I was done. And creating those very firm delineations was one of the things I learned, I think I learned it about two months into med school, and I think it made a big difference in my productivity throughout, particularly those first couple years.

Pooja: Got it. So I guess to dig a little bit deeper into that point because I feel like I’ve heard some people do that. And the classmates of mine who had families definitely cited that they were doing that. I’m curious, what did work look like during that 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. period? And was that work kind of similar over the years, or did it kind of adapt as your like stage in medical school changed?

Camden: Definitely. I’m going to get to the second part of that first actually, because I think this is what makes time management so dang hard for people in the medical field is that our reality changes like 10 times between M1 and the end of residency. And then you start being a physician, like a an actual attending. And the demands on your time are going to vary completely. The ability of you to structure your own time varies wildly. I know you’re at the tail end of clerkships right now, and you can speak to this very well, and I can speak to in residency, it’s like, I don’t know when I’m getting home. I’m getting home sometime today, or maybe not. And so trying to kind of navigate around that can be can be challenging, but at the same time, I think is why it’s important to build skill sets early on when it comes to time management. So day-to-day is for me, I’ve always tried to prioritize the things that I care most about intellectually early in the morning.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: So I think it’s important like figure out when you work best. For me, I work best early. You know, by the time it hits 5:00, my brain starts fizzling out. Like, you know, I’m not going to be paying that much attention anymore. So I try to always front-load kind of the goal that I had. And typically, these were mid-term goals. What I mean by that was like shelf exam or, you know, an abstract for a conference, not like day-to-day goals, but like my short, kind of mid-term goals.

Pooja: Mhmm.

Camden: Then focus on the day-to-day. This is listening, you know, if you’re an M1, M2, listening to lectures, you know, catching up on your notes, doing flash cards, completing practice questions. That was kind of like the middle chunk of the day. And then the latter part of the day, when I start to kind of deteriorate in my very precise thinking, I focus on my long-term goals. So this is stuff like applying to residency. So this is being part of student interest groups and dealing with all those emails. This is part of kind of, you know, pursuing my related but outside interests, you know, public service, what not. Kind of save that for the end of the day. And so throughout the day, I simultaneously tried to tackle like day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year goals.

Pooja: Yes. Yes. No, I appreciate that because I think something about It’s funny, when I think when people see the episode title, “Time Management,” it’s easy to just think it’s about, oh, finishing things on time. But the truth is that it’s it’s not about that, right? And I think what you’re saying kind of really echoes that it’s not just about being able to, you know, have all the material covered before your exam and be able to meet your requirements. It’s about being able to do that but also go above and beyond and accomplish the other things that are required. Because I think something that’s becoming more common in undergrad and in medical school studies is having other things that you have to be doing in addition to school, kind of all the time.

Camden: Yes. Yes. You hit the nail right on the head there. I totally agree. And every year when I look at new applicants, I was on the admissions board for our med school, and every year I looked at new applicants, I’m like, “God, you’re doing so much. Like, oh my goodness.” Like, it’s incredible what folks were doing. I was like, “How did you manage that in college?” But, you know, congrats to them. And I think it comes down to that sort of time management. And even more than time management, the term I like to use is time prioritization.

Pooja: Yeah. Tell me more about that.

Camden: So you have however many minutes in the day. I actually don’t quite know that. You have to like when I make my to-do list, and I always recommend this to those that I’m mentoring as well, when you make your to-do list, try to prioritize it in some way, shape, or form. One way to prioritize it, like I mentioned earlier, is I actually have a Word document that is like short, long, and day-to-day goals. And then on top of that, like life goals, like, you know, home stuff. And on the short, middle, and long term, I try to prioritize it by what, you know, in that quarter, I kind of do this every 3 months. I re-prioritize what are my actual goals during that time.

So to give you an example, you know, a big part of my life has been research and a big part of my, you know, ideas of getting into residency and a lot of that focused on research. And so working on my paper, even when I was in my clerkship years, my day-to-day was all focused on clerkship. My month-to-month was all focused on shelf exams. But my long-term list of priorities was focused on publishing these papers, continuing to work on my research. So that hour and a half I try to kind of like budget every day was focused on that number one. And then only once I finished that could I move to the next one and the next one and the next one.

Pooja: That makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate you kind of explaining even in almost a visual way, although this is a completely auditory form of media. I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit, how often would you revisit this like Word document that you have? Was it a weekly thing, a monthly thing?

Camden: I would revisit it almost every day, actually, because I would add things to the to-do list. Like I had this like long, it’s the Word document, I still have it actually. I can’t pull it up right now, but it extends pages. And it’s really anytime that I have a thought of, “Oh, I want to work on that,” or, “Oh, I need to do that,” even something very simple, I pop it on the to-do list. Then about once a quarter, so every like 3 months or after any big milestone, I recalibrate.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: I almost treat it like my finances, where like every quarter you’re like coming back to it and you’re like, where’s my money going? What am I doing? Where am I spending money? Well, money is time and time is money. And so that’s kind of how I treat time management as well.

Pooja: Okay. That makes a lot of sense, and I think it’s actually funny. We’re we’re kind of naturally flowing into techniques and strategies. And I have more questions about that, truthfully. But I want to circle back to what we were talking about in terms of like that transition period and times where, you know, maybe the system that you had wasn’t exactly flushed out yet. Were there any points throughout your training where you felt completely overwhelmed?

Camden: Oh, so many.

Pooja: Right, right.

Camden: So many. I can’t even count it on one hand. There was a ton tons of points.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: And I think the best thing you can do, and something in hindsight I’m really proud of myself for doing, probably only because of, you know, my wife and her support network for me was making those times of transition short and short-lived. Because if you let them kind of percolate and make things harder and then things start compounding, it gets a lot harder to get back on your feet.

Pooja: I see. So when you say making the transition period short-lived, how exactly did you go about doing that?

Camden: So let’s take the transition I’m try to think. Try to think of a good example. Let’s do the transition to med school.

Pooja: Sure. Yeah.

Camden: That specific transition. So here you come from college. You’re pre-med. You know how to navigate college. Anyone who’s listening to this, they’re going to get into med school. They’re going to do great. They’re pre-med. They know how to study for college courses, how to write, you know, their essays for college courses, etc., and so forth. But then you transition to med school where like we said earlier, drinking from this fire hose, and suddenly, you can’t just outwork the system. You have to work with the system, and you have to work and be comfortable with not knowing like everything. And that was something that was hard for me. It’s like, “Oh crap, I don’t know every like I don’t know that answer.” And then you freeze up. You’re like, wait, do I not know this? Do I not know that? Like, ah, I need to keep studying all the time. And then you can quickly, you can see how that spirals. And I think we’ve all been in that place where that starts to spiral, you know, when you’re on clerkships and the attending is questioning you and you’re like, “I don’t know.” We all hate saying that. And I think the key thing is to catch it. Be like, “Oh, wait, I don’t know. So how can I prioritize what I’m working on right now to then tackle that?”

And so I think having someone that you can talk to, be like, “I really feel like I’m not, you know, up to snuff. I don’t quite know everything.” And having a sounding board is how I got kind of through those things. So to summarize, having a sounding board, personal, virtual, doesn’t matter, a sounding board to kind of convey your hesitations to is a really important part of that those transition periods.

Pooja: Got it. Okay. And now I also see how your wife plays into it too, because it sounds like she was someone who was your sounding board in a lot of ways.

Camden: Yes.

Pooja: Okay. Got it. That makes sense. And I think something that you said that I think will resonate with a lot of people is realizing that being overwhelmed is not a sign that you’re not prepared, and it’s not a sign that you’re not doing enough. It’s just the nature of what you’re going through, and it is a completely normal thing to have happen. I can tell you that I personally felt overwhelmed so many times. I’m a fourth-year med student now. You would think, you would think that I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed at this point. But unfortunately, it happens, right? I think there’s something nice to be said about I guess making cognitive restructuring to feelings of anxiety and overwhelm. You know? And I’m curious to see if you kind of agree where like if you’re feeling overwhelmed by something, in a way it’s good because you’re not apathetic yet. Like you still care about it.

Camden: I and I don’t think I alluded to this explicitly, but the solution, at least for me personally, to being overwhelmed by information was to flip it and say, “Oh, heck yeah. I have no clue what I’m talking about. Let’s learn it.” And that was like a really big thing. Maybe that’s my inner scientist coming out and whatnot, but like that worked really well during my grad school years, my PhD. It was like, “Oh, I have no clue what’s going on. How about I figure out how to figure out what’s going on? And how about I teach myself to figure out what’s going on?”

Pooja: Yes. Yes. And I will tell you, I mean, listen, I am not I am not a scientist. But I still I still feel like I eventually learned to do that, and I think it ended up making a huge difference for me as well. So it sounds like the two things that really helped you cope with when you were feeling overwhelmed is one, having a sounding board, and two, kind of taking that cognitive restructuring of maybe I don’t know what’s going on, but it is now my personal challenge to figure that out and kind of emerge on the other side victorious, having conquered whatever it is I wasn’t able to do before.

Camden: Yes. What I’ll say about that final point is it’s almost like you gamify the system.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: You’re not like I don’t know if anyone in the audience is a video game guy, like, you know, I was back in the day, is like, like, you got to level up. You know, like, and this is your opportunity to pursue some side quests. Maybe your side quest is like, you know, complete this abstract, or your side quest is to join the student group and become, you know, one of the board members for it. Your quest is still the same, getting into residency, become a great physician, become a great doctor, treat, you know, treat humans. But you have all these fun side quests along the way. And I think when you make that mental shift, particularly if you’re able to early on in medical school, it just makes it fun.

Pooja: Yeah. Even in undergrad. Like I feel like there’s so many I feel like even in undergrad, the side quests are definitely more. Like I think there’s so many more extracurriculars that people are doing and are expected to do. So I love that concept of a side quest because I think it’s super important. I wonder kind of transitioning a little bit, did you feel like you had any role models or mentors who helped you understand how to manage your time effectively? Because it sounds like you developed amazing systems for organizing yourself and for coping. I wonder how much of that came from you versus came from people who advised you.

Camden: I’ve had so many amazing mentors over the years. Even though it came after my first few years of med school, one of the best mentors, not one of the best, the best mentor I’ve had in my life academically has been my PhD advisor. And I spent 5 years with him, and it was the a really formative 5 years of my life. And I still work with him to this day. I’m at a completely different institution, hundreds of miles away, and we still communicate on a regular because he was that instrumental to how I think, how I process my time, how I approach problems. And he taught me a lot about time management or at least reinforced a lot of what I thought about time management. And some of the things I articulated earlier kind of get to what he basically instilled in me, which is this idea if you got short, long, medium-term goals, you’ve got 24 hours in the day and you have to prioritize a little bit of each of those.

Pooja: Yes.

Camden: The other mentors I had were actually those above me in med school, the class above me. You start getting, you know, part of student groups, you make friends. I encourage everyone, make friends with those above you because they’re going to say like, “Hey, by the way, this doesn’t really matter. Like the administration really makes you think that this matters for what not or what not like when it comes to the school. Don’t waste your time on that.” Like that helps with the prioritization. So I had a lot of mentors that helped in that regard. The specific techniques, I think, came from self-discovery and from honestly, the internet and podcasts like this, like truly.

Pooja: Yeah. I mean, I think the more resources exist for free, the better, which is why I’m glad that this podcast exists. But yeah, I completely agree with the idea that mentors can come in all shapes and sizes and ages. Like you can have people who are very far their advanced in their career, like your PI was, but you can also have people who are just a year or two above you who very clearly remember what they felt like when they were in your shoes and can kind of anticipate your needs and tell you what you need, what they wish they had heard when they were in that position.

Camden: Oh yeah. And as being early on in residency right now, I am completely relying on those above me to really give me like concrete like, “Is this a really big care or is this less of a care? Like, how much do I need to kind of devote to how much of my time and resources should I devote to different…”

Pooja: Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds like prioritization of time and thinking about how you approach problems are things that you can seek guidance from your mentors and from your role models.

Camden: 100%. And to be open about it. Like ask them directly, like, do I need to care about this? Or like, what would you do in this situation? I think being candid with, once you identify a mentor, you establish a mentorship, be candid with them because that’s going to go a really long way to helping you get the best advice.

Pooja: Yeah. Absolutely. And we are going to be having several episodes in the future that also talk about mentorship as well, but it seems like sometimes mentors are people who are formally assigned to you, but then there are others that you kind of create with time, like someone who you admire who you can just say, “Hey, I would love to meet with you to chat about whatever it is you want to chat about,” and then you kind of continue to seek advice from that person.

Camden: 100%.

Pooja: Absolutely. So, okay. Let’s transition a little bit. We’ve been talking a little bit already about techniques and strategies. And it sounds like from what you described that the Word document that you had was really a technique, a tool, a collection of your thoughts. It was kind of everything almost for helping you during medical school and during your path to medical school, I’m sure, of like balancing everything. Is there anything else that you think helped?

Camden: 100%. So I think in a career like medicine where, like we said earlier, you don’t know what’s going to happen on any given day. You really have one of the most unpredictable schedules. I would argue of pretty much any profession, even when you’re in training. I actually like to take a toolbox approach, which is that you have this toolbox, it’s full of all sorts of different tools, and at different points in your training, you’re going to use different tools to get what you need to get done.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: So the overall ‘Blueprint’ is oh, to drop the name, but the overall blueprint…

Pooja: Very nice. Very nice. We did not we did not ask you to do that.

Camden: But the overall blueprint, truly, is like, for me, it was like this Word document. Other people it’s their Google calendar, other people, they’re it’s like their mind map, whatever they might use, some app or some resource. That’s your overall blueprint. But then you have this toolbox, which is, okay, I need to get to that point and conquer all those things. And so I need to have little tricks and tips that I can use throughout the process to get there.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: I’m happy to talk about some individual ones, or we can save that for later, but kind of let me know your thoughts.

Pooja: No, man. The time is now. Please dig deep. Tell us tell us anything you want us to know.

Camden: Totally. Yeah. I’m going to start off with kind of a silly one, but actually one that is like I’ll call this the hammer in my toolbox because it just gets stuff done quickly. I learned this actually from one of my mentors, actually, in grad school as well. I call it the 5-minute rule. I don’t know if it has a different term, but if I can do something in 5 minutes, do it.

And so what I mean by that is we get peppered with all this information many times a day, emails, texts, all that. I actually I’ve honestly tailored it down to a 3-minute rule, whereas if I get an email that I can just tackle and get done and solve the issue within 3 minutes, I do it right then. I don’t do anything else. I do it right then. If there’s a task around the house, even if it’s laundry or something like that, and I can do it in 3 minutes, you know, all you want to do is go on YouTube and watch YouTube shorts or go on Instagram. No. 3 minutes, do it, and be done. Because then it doesn’t go on the to-do list. Then it’s done, it’s complete, and you can move on, and you have to expend no further mental energy on it.

It’s kind of like all those tech guys, Bill Belichick, if you’re into sports, who wear the same outfit like every single day so they don’t have to think about it. It’s a little bit of that same mindset, which is like limited cognitive capacity. Let me apply it in a very strategic way. I don’t want to be thinking about all my to-do list when I’m trying to focus on my UWorld questions or my lectures. So if I can do it in 5 minutes, get it done. There’s a caveat to that, which is that if you respond to everything within 5 minutes all throughout the day, you never would get anything done out of what you actually needed to get done.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: So that’s where you have to the second part of the toolbox is you have a hammer, but you got a little bit of a lock on that hammer where you only use it during set times of the day.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: Like don’t have your email open all day. Like instead, on your phone, I set it so that every hour that I get, you know, refresh my emails, it’s not constant. Because it’s it allows you then, I’ve got a dedicated hour of thinking, of working, with no distractions.

Pooja: That’s really cool. Wait, how do you how do you do that? How do you set your email so that it’s only at every hour it’ll refresh it for you?

Camden: I just did something when I first got my phone. Maybe it’s just because I have a really old phone. You just set it so that it doesn’t refresh constantly. It only refreshes every hour or so. And if that doesn’t work and you’ve got a new phone that refreshes constantly, I just put it away for an hour and then get my work done and then I give myself 5 minutes to tackle everything that came in and then move on.

Pooja: Got it. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

Camden: Exactly. And then you have your… Again, I hope this doesn’t fall flat on anyone who doesn’t really work a lot with their, you know, woodworking and what not.

Pooja: No, yeah. I feel like I feel like you can tell that I don’t because I’m really struggling with my hammer, but I’m I’m with you. I’m with you.

Camden: Then you have your saw. Your saw is your prioritization. You got to cut out things. You have to focus on what really matters. You know, don’t focus on the scrap wood, focus on the main wood. I think I’m taking this analogy probably a little too far.

Pooja: No, I love it. Please keep going.

Camden: But no, that’s a big part of it is like you have to start to prioritize because we all have too much to do on every given day. And so prioritization, which I’ve said probably 10 times at this point, is one of the keys to successful time management.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: The third tool is your tape measure. And that is the hardest one because it’s all about trying to identify how long you think something will take.

Pooja: Mmm.

Camden: And that’s very, very hard to do. At least I find it very hard to do.

Pooja: Me as well.

Camden: And always overestimate by 20%. That’s just like a rule of thumb I’ve discovered. Like just overestimate by 20% and typically you’re actually going to be about right at that point.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: And it does two things. One, if you overestimate by 20%, you know that you gave yourself more than enough time and so you better complete it by that timeline. So it puts a timeline on you. And then second, it doesn’t make you feel bad when you don’t quite finish it as soon as you thought.

Pooja: Yeah. I really like that. Okay, so far we’ve talked about the hammer, which is the 5-minute rule, the lock on that hammer, so having the 5-minute rule, but probably don’t spend the entire day doing 5-minute tasks. The saw, cutting things out, and then the tape measure, which is estimating how long, but overestimating by 20%. Is there anything else that you have in this toolbox?

Camden: I don’t have a good tool actually for this one, but it’s truly is and I think this gets to the heart of everything, and if you’re listening, you already have this tool because you are a pre-med or a med student. You have it. It’s just cultivating it. And that’s discipline.

Pooja: Mmm.

Camden: You have to keep to these things. And that is where things where you fall off, is like sometimes discipline fades. I’ve gone through that. We talked about hardships earlier, like hundreds of times. I’m like, “I did not stick at all to what I planned to do today.” Like crap. The key is that it’s discipline, but it’s discipline with grace. Meaning that if you don’t if you fall off the wagon, if you will, when it comes to your time management, the enemy of good is perfect.

Pooja: Mmm.

Camden: I believe that’s the phrase.

Pooja: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, perfect’s the enemy of good. You got it.

Camden: Yeah. And so you’re you’re striking just to be good at time management. If you’re perfect, then you’re probably a robot. So I can’t compete with that.

Pooja: Right. Right, right. It’s not us versus AI yet.

Camden: Soon. I’m in radiology. I can say that. 

Pooja: Okay, maybe I’ll follow up with that with you about that because I have I do have questions about that. Okay, so I’m trying to think. Honestly, I’m trying to stall because I’m trying to think about a tool in your toolbox that would go with discipline with grace because I do think it’s important. The first thing that came to mind was like a chain, but chains don’t exist in toolboxes, do they? That doesn’t make sense.

Camden: Oh. No, I’ve got one. A clamp.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: Yeah. A clamp.

Pooja: Tell us more. Tell us more.

Camden: A clamp holds or a level, I’ve got it right here. A clamp is something that restricts two things together in the pursuit of a goal, which is a specific cut or specific measurement or a specific, you know, glue them together. So actually, a clamp, I think, is a good parallel because it is literally the structure that holds together all the pieces and parts of your project.

Pooja: Okay. I like that. I really like that. So we have, I’ve been typing this out to keep track for myself, the hammer, the 5-minute rule, the lock, to make sure you’re not doing it all the time, so you’re not just like responding to emails all day. There is the saw to cut things out and prioritize. The tape measure to estimate how long and overestimate by like roughly 20% so that if it does takes you that long, you’re not feeling bad, but you’re also holding yourself accountable. And then, which I think honestly, I’m going to steal that one. I still I’m going to steal all of these, but I feel like that one is the one that I needed to take like yesterday because in my fourth year, I feel like it’s a lot of I’m in like a virtual elective right now, and it’s wonderful because I’m having time to pursue all these other academic interests that I’ve been pushing aside and working on my research, but I am so bad at estimating how long it takes to do things.

And I feel like I really love this idea of 20%. And then the discipline with grace, which is the clamp, the structure that kind of holds everything together. And I think, you know, the clamp might be my favorite tool, not only because we came up with it together, but also because it’s a medical tool too. So I feel like people who don’t necessarily know what’s in a toolbox, like me, will still know. Like I feel like a lot of people in medicine know what a clamp is. So, I love it.

Camden: Pass me the Kelly clamp in surgery.

Pooja: Yeah, yeah. Sure. I love it. Okay. So, with all of this in mind, we talked a lot about prioritizing. So not to hit the hammer on the nail again, but I guess how do you go about prioritizing? Let’s say like if everything felt urgent or important, because I feel like when I was in the beginning of med school, and I’m I think you felt this way too, because we kind of talked about that idea of drinking from a water hose. It kind of feels like everything feels important. How did you go about figuring out what is actually important and what is I know we talked about mentors, but was there anything else that you used to figure that out?

Camden: Yeah, that’s a really, really good question. And it’s not an easy thing to do, and you’re not going to get it right perfectly the first time or the second time, but you’re going to get better each time. And I think and I still I’ve not perfected it. Like I said, the goal of time management should never be perfection, it should be good. I think the thing to do is to take a step this is where you take a step back. And I’m going to use the toolbox analogy here again. You’ve got your blueprints. You’re going to look at your blueprints and you’re going to say, “Okay, this is the building I’m trying to construct. This is the project I’m working on.” What is my end goal?

Well, first of all, foremost, our end goal is to be the best, you know, gosh darn doctors that we can be. But in the interim, there are set criteria we need to hit along the way, check boxes if you will, to get there. Everyone has a circuitous route. There’s no set way of doing that. It’s a very personalized thing here. But what you have to do is you have to not focus on that next exam or the next exam. Like, your first-year med student, I remember I had like back then they had a very traditional schedule. It was like biochem, all the physiology first year, all the pathology second year. What you had to do is step back and be like, “Okay, I have a cardio test in two weeks.” Like that cardio test is just one little part of my end goal, which is getting into residency, which I think is a valid like goal at this point.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: And you have to say, “Well, what do I need for residency?” Dealer’s choice. For me, speaking from my own personal experience, I knew that basically my shtick, if you will, for residency and because I’m also interested in it, is research.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: So I was like, okay, I need to like that should always be a priority. You know, it’s more important to me than student interest groups. It’s more important to me than, you know, volunteering and all of that. Yeah. Personally, to me, it means more. Like I just I love research. And so that’s what I focused on from the beginning. So you have to take a step back and say, what am I interested in? What is going to be sort of the way that I get to my end goal? And most importantly, what is it I want to do? Because as a pre-med, you basically are told you need to check off boxes. You got to have your community service. You have to have your volunteer. You have to have your, you know, good grades. You have to have your research. Residency is totally different. They want someone who’s going to be a good colleague who cares deeply about what they’re doing. If you care deeply about community service, awesome. Embrace it from day one and make it a priority. You know, like if you care deeply about research, embrace it from day one, make it a priority.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: So it’s I think a big problem, I’m speaking a lot here, I know, but a big problem I see in not problem, a big roadblock I see in a lot of the students I mentor is thinking that they need to do it all. No.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: You don’t need to do it all. Do what you truly like, truly do what you love because that’s what they’re looking for in residency.

Pooja: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I appreciate that you’ve kind of delineated the difference between the expectations and the goals for pre-meds versus I know there’s no acronym, but I’ll we’ll call them “meds” to make sure and hopefully people who are listening at this point will understand that “meds” does not mean medications. We mean medical students. But regardless, I appreciate that you kind of delineated it because I think something that’s worth kind of talking about a little bit is that when you’re a pre-med and you’re trying to say like, “Oh, I want to be a doctor,” you’re trying to figure out what that means.

So you do a little bit of everything, not to check off a box, but just to explore what it is you like and what your own superpowers are and what your strengths are. And then when you get to medical school, from what you’ve described, you were someone who like probably did a little bit of everything in undergrad and figured out, “I really like research.” And so you decided to take that from a strength to a super strength, right? A superpower almost. And so you made that a big priority as something that you kind of continued. And so I think it helps people understand that the way you’re prioritizing, from what you’re describing, is a little bit of everything to explore, but the purpose of exploration. And then when you get to medical school, still exploration because you’re not going to know exactly what you want to do.

Camden: Oh, of course.

Pooja: But there are things that you know about yourself that you should hold on to when you’re in medical school, and you should continue to develop those strengths as you continue on. Does that sound right to you? Does that sound like an encapsulation of what you’ve kind of talked about?

Camden: That was an awesome summary. And I’m going to summarize it one more time in like one line, which is basically like med school, it’s about capitalizing like finding your superpower. Med school is about finding your superpower. And it’s okay if that takes you a little while, but like just find it because that’s what’s going to prevent you from getting burnt out. It’s like, “Find what you care about.” That’s what med school is about. And then let that carry you forward because then you have to prioritize. The prioritization is, “What am I going to have the most fun doing today?” And then your list is easy.

Pooja: Yeah. No, I am so glad you talked about the superpower thing because I actually said that to a group of I was like helping one of my advisory deans. He had a panel for younger students, and I literally said that exact word that like part of the clerk I was talking about the clerkship years specifically, but I think it applies to med school broadly is about finding your superpower. And I think for pre-meds, it’s exploring what that could possibly look like and kind of going to medical schools during interviews and stuff and being like, “I have a couple things that I really like. We’ll see what happens.”

Camden: And it changes.

Pooja: And then

Camden: It changes all the time.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: It changes all the time. I came in and I was like, “I’m going to do neurosurgery. I’m like I’ve done all this neuroscience research. I’m doing neurosurgery.” And then I got to like my neurology and neurosurgery rotations. I was like, “Nah. Like, no, I’m not doing that.

Pooja: I was a little curious about because I remember when I was reading about you in your bio, like, oh, it was neurology to interventional radiology. So I was curious what made that shift, and it sounds like not to deviate too much from the subject here, but it sounds like clerkships are kind of what did that for you.

Camden: No one should make any decision about what they want to go into until they’ve started their clerkships.

Pooja: 100%. Okay. Amazing. So, let’s talk a little bit about mindset. So you talked about how finding your superpower is important to prevent burnout. Is that something that you felt like happened for you? Like that was like research is something that fueled you a little bit as you kind of progressed through medical school?

Camden: Yeah, 100%. So like you will feel burnt out during medical school. Everyone will. It’s a very natural process, and I think it doesn’t just apply to medicine, it applies to any career, any educational thing. Like it’s it’s part of life. One thing I always like to think about is that med school just like everything else is sinusoidal. You’ve got low periods, you’ve got high periods. You got low periods. Those low periods are usually times with burnout, and then you have to have some way of getting back to the high periods and then kind of come back down. Research and family, personally, was what sort of was like the line through that like if I’ve got my sinusoidal graph, it’s like the line straight through. You know, it’s the x-axis that kind of moves you and keeps you moving forward along your trajectory even when other things are like, “Oh, that didn’t go as planned.” So I think so you need to find your superpower, but you also need to find, you know, even Superman had a kryptonite. You need to find someone that’s going to help treat that kryptonite or something.

Pooja: Lois Lane or whatever. Yeah, you know, Superman has a dog, too. I don’t know. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I feel like I think the new Superman has Superman with the dog, so or maybe, I don’t know. I don’t remember. But some support network, it seems, is important, or support thing or even for some people, like an art form, you know? Like a hobby.

Camden: Yeah. Some thing that gets you outside, you know, gets you being creative or something that, you know, they always make the joke, even though it’s been debunked of, you know, you’ve got your right brain and your left brain. You have your logical brain, and then you have your artistic brain. That’s been debunked, but in general, find something that is in many ways antithetical to your studying all day brain. You know, and that’s usually creativity. And research for me was that creativity.

Pooja: I think research is really creative, and I think people kind of undersell that. Like research does seem technical in a lot of ways, but like to be able to come up with a whole protocol for something based on a question that you have, that involves a lot of creativity.

Camden: Yeah, it’s like making your own Lego set.

Pooja: I love that. I love that. I guess one thing I want to ask you about because you already kind of alluded to the fact that you’ve been burnt out before. How did you navigate that? And during that period of burnout, I guess tell us again as much detail as you feel comfortable with, but how did you kind of keep going when you were burnt out and stay productive and continuing along your training?

Camden: Yeah, so as I kind of was that first of all, it’s a really great question, and I think it’s a very intimate question for anyone listening. Everyone experiences things in different ways. So what I’m saying is purely just my own kind of thinking about this from a very conceptual standpoint in retrospect in many ways is that we have that sinusoidal curve of life, if you will, studies, particularly during medical school, where it’s like, I did great on an exam. Oh, I did terrible on an exam. Oh, now I’m kind of like I feel terrible. I’m kind of burnt out.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: And like, I just don’t have the motivation. All I want to do, I actually learned this from a med student today, citing my age here, but someone said something about like couch rot, like where you like sit on your phone and you like just watch your phone all day. And like they’re like, “That’s all I want to do.” I’m like, maybe that’s going to like and it’s like, yeah, that’s a little bit of a sign of burnout that you’re kind of like seeking other dopamine hits if you will. But I think the best thing to do is remember that perfect is the enemy of good, and time management is the goal is good.

So if you just get one task done, okay. It’s a little bit of the one foot in front of the other, which is not meant at all to take away from the burden that kind of these situations can put people in. But for me personally, it was just be like, the last thing I want to do is this one thing, but it’s number one on my priority list for my daily to-do list. Let’s pull up the Word document. I’m going to do that. Okay. Let’s do another one. Okay, another one. You know, you’re like kind of digging yourself a little bit out of a out of a ditch. And I think it goes a really long way towards eventually getting you back to where you need to be.

Pooja: Yeah. No, I completely agree with that, and I think it makes a lot of sense. I think the one foot in front of the other is an excellent way to approach it because I feel like in terms of burnout, from what I’ve experienced and from what I’ve heard, I think the only way out is really through and being able to kind of figure out ways to recover. So I guess building on that idea, did you do anything specific that helped you recover?

Camden: Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because we actually haven’t talked about the third part of my time prioritization or the fourth part actually, which is life outside of medicine.

Pooja: Yes, yes.

Camden: And I’ll take earlier on in my medical career, um, you know, before my wife and kids and all of that is for me, it’s finding that outlet that you mentioned earlier is, you know what, part of your to-do list is to for me, was get outside. Like literally written on my Word document, like go outside.

So I’d be like, okay, I don’t want to study. Like, I will go outside. And then you go outside and you’re like, “Oh, hey, look at this. I found a new like hiking trail. Cool. Okay. Let’s go explore that.” And the next thing you know, you’ve totally used the rest of your day exploring that. But in that in that time, you’ve kind of rejuvenated a little bit.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: You’ve gotten out of the place that you’re studying all day. I think something I tell all of my students, when you’re navigating burnout, change environment.

Pooja: Mmm.

Camden: Get out of your apartment. Get out of the school library. Do something that moves you to a new location and prioritize something completely different on your to-do list for time prioritization. Prioritize something outside of medicine, outside of work.

Pooja: Mmm. I like that. So there’s there’s sort of two it’s like a two-part recipe almost. So getting one foot in front of the other, doing one task at a time, maybe starting with the low hanging fruit first, sending the email you don’t want to send, whatever it might be, but also having this recovery kind of mindset and doing things that fill your cup outside of medicine.

Camden: Yeah. Again, if you haven’t discovered it by now, I’m a person who loves analogies, and my analogy for this

Pooja: I love it. I’m obsessed with it. I really am. This is so iconic.

Camden: We’re athletes. We’re just really stationary athletes in medicine.

Pooja: Don’t tell any orthopedic surgeons you said that.

Camden: You don’t train for a marathon every single day. You got to have like, you got to take rest days. And here, you don’t study every single day. All this time prioritization and time management, no. Like, you need to prioritize your recovery days. They’re just as important as your exertion days. And so you have to prioritize that. And I think it’s really easy to fall in the trap where those get left to the side, which also actually, scientifically has been shown that also happens to athletes.

Pooja: It’s good to know. I didn’t know that happened to athletes. But it makes sense. Like I feel like medical school and athletic training, sort of similar to the analogy that you said, they’re intense periods of time where you’re kind of just building like muscles or for us, it’s skill sets and just using them over and over and over again. And I feel like when you’re like I really am good about to expose how little I know about sports, but when you are throwing a ball in whatever sport, there’s like a skill set that’s kind of associated with that with your aim, with how hard you’re going to throw it, all of that. And the best way to get good at it is to get your reps in.

And I think a big thing of medicine is just getting your reps in, whether it’s practice problems, whether it’s flash cards, whether it’s actual patients, and when you when you start seeing patients. And so I think there’s a lot of parallels there that I don’t think I don’t think it could be said enough.

Camden: 100%. I totally agree.

Pooja: Yeah. So, I guess for you, and we talked about like one foot at a time and it sounds like that required a lot of motivation from you. Where did that motivation kind of come from?

Camden: For me, it wasn’t motivation. Like when you’re in kind of the depths of burnout, it’s not motivation. It’s just, “Okay, I’ve like maybe it’s motivation in some way, shape, or form, but it’s it’s more like a duty,” is, you know, you don’t know at that point necessarily what your end goal is. And you have some idealistic, you know, vision of where you want to be. For me, it was like, “I’m going to get into residency in one of the hardest specialties.” Sure. Okay, fine. Like, I’m completely burnt out. Last thing I want to do is study. I, you know, don’t feel like I’m doing well. And then you take a step back and you’re like, okay, well, let’s compartmentalize. And let’s just say I can’t do anything about that right now. But what I can do something about is, you know, sending that email.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: Doing the laundry, maybe cleaning the kitchen. Like it’s, you know, find that one thing that you’re like, this is the thing that I am most willing to do out of all the things I don’t want to do. And then you kind of claw your way back out of that. And eventually, and again, you know, if you need help as well, you know, seek that through resources. But like in a very conceptual sense, that kind of gets you up every rung of the ladder all the way back to the roof where you were working before.

Pooja: Yeah. No, I completely agree with that, and I think it makes a lot of sense. I think the one foot in front of the other is an excellent way to approach it because I feel like in terms of motivation, what you’ve described. And the reason for that is because I think that at any moment, and I think something this is something that med students forget all the time and undergrad students forget all the time. But people can drop out whenever they want, but you choose not to. And that is a factor of motivation. And you for you, it sounds like it’s this sense of duty and it’s this sense of I want to be a doctor, I want to accomplish my goal. That in itself is a motivation. And for you, it sounds like it’s so intrinsically a part of you that like you don’t even see it that way, you know?

Camden: Touche. Touche. Yeah, no. You can convince me. Yeah. Yeah.

Pooja: Yeah. So I feel like for people who are listening to this, like even if you feel like you’re burnt out right now, the fact that you’ve made it to this point in this podcast means that you are a highly, highly motivated person. And just because you’re not able to do as much as what you imagine a highly motivated person is doing doesn’t mean that your motivation is gone because burnout and motivation, I think, are different. They’re different concepts.

Camden: Totally. And for anyone who’s listening again, as with everything in life, apply the 120% rule that I mentioned earlier, is whatever you think that other people are doing, like they’re not. It doesn’t quite apply there. But like basically like whatever you think you’re able to do, say that’s 120% and then knock yourself down to 100%. So it’s almost like an 80% or it’s like the inverse of the 120% rule, which is like estimate what you’re able to do and then say, “Okay, I’m not going to actually be able to do all that.” That is another really important part of the this will be the chisel in the toolbox.

Pooja: Okay. I’m writing another tool to the toolbox. Love it.

Camden: Yeah, which is basically like whatever you think you’re going to do during the day, I still fall into this all the time. I fall into this probably once a week, which is, “Oh, I want to do all these things this weekend on my weekend off. Am I actually going to get all these things done?” No. There’s not a way.

Pooja: I think that all the time. Yeah.

Camden: Yeah, exactly. So cut it down 80% or even cut it down 70%. That is what you’re going to get done, and then when you reach that 70%, you’re like, “Oh, I did everything I planned.” And that helps motivation and that helps prevent burnout.

Pooja: So just to clarify, are you cutting it down to 80% or 70% or are you cutting 80%?

Camden: Cutting it down. So like if I say

Pooja: I can even use this own weekend for example is we’re expecting a new baby any day now and…

Pooja: Oh, congratulations. That’s so exciting.

Camden: And I’m like, “I need to do so much before then.” Like maybe I’m nesting. I’m not quite sure. But like there’s so many projects around the house and, you know, earlier today actually, before this meeting, I sat myself down during lunch and I was like, here’s my to-do list. Let’s cut out I had 20 things and I cut out 5 things. I said, those are not on the to-do list because this is what I’m going to get done. Aspirational versus reality. Right?

Pooja: Right. No, that makes sense. There was there was a quote a fourth-year student had said when I was in an interview applying for a position, and he had said, “My eyes are bigger than my stomach.” And I think that applies to a lot of us because a lot of us, like I said, highly motivated, wanting to do a lot of things. Sometimes you kind of bite off more than you could chew when you make your to-do list. And so I appreciate the addition. I think the chisel to the toolbox, it’s a due edition. I like it.

Camden: Yeah.

Pooja: Okay. So, back to what we were talking about when we’re talking about like motivation and burnout, the last thing that I kind of wanted to touch in there is you and you alluded to it a little bit when you were talking about how interventional radiology is one of the more competitive specialties to match into. But you did it. Congrats. But it sounds like there was a lot of pressure associated with that.

Camden: Yeah, but as with all things that are pressure, 90% of that pressure is self-imposed pressure.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: Even if it’s extrinsic pressure, you know, I have colleagues who are like their parents really want them to become a cardiologist or something. I’m lucky. I come from a family with no doctors, so they have no clue even what interventional radiology is.

Pooja: Me as well. Yeah.

Camden: But, even if it’s external pressure, it’s still internal pressure that is the guiding force here. And so it’s recognizing that it’s internal pressure and that no one will judge you differently depending on whatever your path takes you. And so I think it’s it’s more of like realizing that it’s you pressuring yourself to like try to get into be a neurosurgeon. Like you have to ask yourself why? Why do I want to do that? Do I want to do it for the prestige? Okay, if that’s your thing, fine. Do I want to do it? Like, I may be argue against that, but if that’s your thing, sure. If you want to do it because you find it awesome, heck yeah. And then if you want to do it because you think it’s a good lifestyle, okay, if that’s, you know, floats your fancy, great. Do that too. But the big thing is that like you need to recognize that the pressure to get into a certain specialty is 99% internal.

Pooja: Mmm. Okay. That makes a lot of sense.

Camden: Does that make sense?

Pooja: It does. It does make sense. Like I think by realizing that the pressure that you’re experiencing is pressure that’s internal, it in a way releases it a little bit because it kind of helps you understand like sort of when you were talking about whether or not something is important, 90% of that pressure, the fact that it’s self-imposed means you can remove it or at least parts of it anytime you like.

Camden: Yep. The only person judging yourself is you.

Pooja: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, that is a real that’s real. That’s real. I guess in that same vein, let’s take that remaining 10% or even let’s take that 90% and people say like, okay, fine, I get it, 90% of it is self-imposed. I still want to have there’s still some things that they care about. Like let’s say for example, if there’s choosing residency and they either care about like the specialty or they care about the prestige of the institution that they go to or whatever it is that is important to them, if you felt any of that, how did you handle that while maintaining like personal time and maintaining the things that are not within your goal? Like for example, because we kind of talked about how you were interested, like your primary goal for a long time was residency and then outside of that was research, but you also had your family and like your budding family for some time. How did you balance both of those things?

Camden: Yeah, that’s again, totally individual and personal question. But for me, what I frankly, the biggest determinator of where I did my away rotations and where I and my ranking list was not medicine-related. That played a role.

Pooja: Okay.

Camden: But and even in my letter to the program director when I said, “Hey, I want to go here,” one of the primary reasons was family. It was part of like residency’s hard. I knew it. I knew it was going to be here for a long time. I wanted to be somewhat close to my support network as close as, you know, we could be. And the priority really became my family at that point, my kind of budding family.

Pooja: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate you being honest about that.

Camden: I remember I won’t say any names or anything, but I remember I was interviewing at a program. I was like one of my questions during interviews was like, “Hey, anyone have kids?” At this point I had two kids and I knew, you know, knew I had another one on the way and they were like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, one of our attending has a kid.” And I was like, okay, you’re not the program for me. So you have to again, it all comes back to prioritization. Figure out what it is that you want and go for it. That said, my decision to kind of rank programs the way I did also had an aspect of prestige, had research. Prestige was actually lower than I initially thought it would be. It really was research like family, research, clinical training, like, am I going to be a good clinician coming out of here? And then so on and so forth.

Pooja: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think I appreciate your honesty about that. 

Camden: Don’t tell my program. I’m kidding. 

Pooja: No. I mean, it’s okay. No, but it’s helpful to know like whatever your priorities are, that’s what you should hold on to and be mindful of that. We already started talking about like making time for the things that are outside of medical school. Did you while you were again, you were wearing so many hats throughout all of your training, I’m sure. But did you make time for like the hobbies you had? I know you mentioned that you went on hikes and stuff. Did you still like continue to do that throughout medical school?

Camden: Yeah, 100%. This probably only makes context once I say and remind that I grew up in, you know, in Alaska. So outdoors is very important to me. So I actually would go fishing probably twice to 3 times a week after work in the evenings. I luckily lived right near kind of to a body of water that I could fish in. So I prioritized that. That was my, you know, mental health break at the end of the day.

Pooja: Whoa, that’s cool.

Camden: It’s also where I studied for Step 1. I just sat outside in the middle of the woods with First Aid.

Pooja: Are you serious? That is so sick. That is so sick. Wow. Okay.

Camden: Yeah, I got tendonitis from tennis elbow from holding that big old book the entire time.

Pooja: Oh my god.

Camden: But yeah, no, so I did. short answer is yeah, 100%.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: It doesn’t need to be a lot. Once kids came along, that was my new hobby.

Pooja: You made yourself hobbies. Yeah. And I The reason I bring up the family part and kids so much for anyone who’s listening is…

Pooja: Please do. Please do. 

Camden: The reason I bring it up is I think there’s actually a lot of folks out there, particularly they’re in national medical schools and maybe someone who took more circuitous routes uh in the medical education that do have kids. And I personally had no role models when it came to having kids in med school and beyond and then in residency. And so like it’s it’s hard, but like it’s really important that you know that other folks do it and you can do it. That’s my little schtick on that.

Pooja: No, I mean, I think something else is that there are probably a lot of people, and I’ll confess even myself who come across that question a lot. Like when you’re in medical school, a lot of times you’re like even if you go through the straight most straightforward path, which is like one of those 7-year combined programs, no gap year, and then you go straight to residency, you still are in your 20s and late 20s a lot of times where your peers are getting married, having children, or like people you grew up with are doing those things. And so that question comes up. And so I personally appreciate that you’re bringing it up because I feel like it’s helpful for people who are on the fence about it to hear that, okay, you can have it all almost, which is go to a competitive residency, be able to balance research, and still have a family.

Camden: The best piece of advice I got on that, I don’t want to get us too off topic, but it was from my advisor, my mentor for my PI in grad school. When I told him, I was like, “Man, I’m so overwhelmed, but I also want to start a family.” And he I remember him telling me, “There’s no good time to have kids. There’s no good time to get married. Just do it. Wing it. See what happens.”

Pooja: That’s what I’ve been told too, truthfully. That’s kind of the advice that I’ve gotten as well. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Couldn’t agree more. I think another thing that I want to ask you, and again, this is probably going to be another I told I told you before we recorded that this is going to be a personal episode, so I’m living up to the promise. Is there anything that you wish you had prioritized more outside of academics looking back?

Camden: That’s a very good question. Give me give me a second just to think on it. Yeah. And I say yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I feel this honestly every day is I wish I’d prioritized more life outside of medicine, not in like partying it up and go out and all that, but like I still like during M3, like I didn’t get to see my new daughter a lot because basically I stayed at the hospital from sundown till sunup so that I could study and do well on shelves and what not and work… that’s what you sign up for though.

So that’s why I don’t necessarily say I would do it differently because it got to me got me to where I am. But I think it’s also like it’s it’s really hard to balance those two. Like I wish I’d, you know, parents get older, grandparents get older. You know, I wish I’d prioritized, you know, spending more time with a lot of those folks. But at the same time, I think it’s just a I think something that a lot of folks in their mid-20s, early 30s that as I say, I’m sounding an old man here, but back in my day. No, but like, you realize like these are the times that you’re supposed to be exhausted and feel like you’re not going to be able to do it all. Like that’s that’s generational. That’s always how it is.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: And it’s okay that you missed, you know, your cousin’s wedding or, you know, you didn’t get to see your, you know, grandparents for that particular time or your parents. So like I regret it, but at the same time, I wouldn’t do it differently because I know what I did got me to where I am. So it’s like a balance between, you know, you this gets back to time management, prioritization. The biggest and the most important thing is that long-term goal. And that’s why it’s the first thing I do every morning. And so even though you do have to make sacrifices to get there, you don’t want to sacrifice everything. And I probably wouldn’t do it any differently, but there are times where I’m like, man, you know, I wish I had spent more time, you know, when my daughter was two at home, you know, getting to see her, you know, grow up. But that’s kind of how it is.

Pooja: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I think everyone would say that too. I Yeah, I think so. I think everybody has some shape or form of spending more time with certain people in my life. And I do think that thinking back and thinking on your response, I do think, this is kind of me thinking out loud at this point, but I think we should probably have another episode about like parenthood and navigating parenthood at various stages in residency because it goes hand-in-hand with time management in a lot of ways, but there are different things about it because also like, not to say the elephant in the room, but like you have a family that is taking care of your children while you’re in the hospital and like other people may not have that circumstance. And like you weren’t pregnant when you were raising your children. And so I think, you know, we this is something to flesh out more and if anybody who’s listening has interest in hearing more about it, like let us know and we’ll we’ll find someone to talk about it, to talk about every aspect of it.

Camden: I think 100% and I think the most important thing would be, you know, a mom and a dad because I see my colleagues, you know, who are very pregnant on the wards. We’re lucky to be an institution that provides really generous maternity leave and paternity leave, but still it’s like I could not have done what I did without the help of my in-laws and, you know, my wife who also works, you know, full time. But, yeah, so again, it gives back to support network is everything.

Pooja: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So, let’s transition to our final segment now, which is about advice for current and future students, which is so funny as a segment because I’m kind of like, that’s what this entire episode is

Camden: But well no, this entire episode’s more just like a, you know, a whole bunch of thoughts in a row.

Pooja: Right, right. A word vomit about the toolbox that is time management. Although I will we’ll be doing a takeaway soon and I will hash out every single tool because I do love that. And if there’s a way, I know we can’t really patent a conversation, but like I would patent that because I think it’s I think it’s brilliant. That’s amazing. But I guess if you were to take one piece of advice that you want to give, I know you’ve had extensive experience mentoring students, so definitely share if there’s one piece of advice that you constantly give people. But to someone who is struggling to balance studies and personal life, if they are new, and I think my initial question was about to a new med student, but I think it kind of can apply to anybody who’s new at something, whether it’s new to undergrad, new to like pre-clinical, clinical, or residency or whatever. But anyone who’s new that’s struggling that adjustment of balancing what they’re doing with their personal life.

Camden: Yeah. Yeah. Let me sit on that real quick because there’s there’s so many options.

Pooja: I know. I also asked you like a super long question.

Camden: So it hits on a couple of things we talked about. And I think the biggest thing is take what you want to do, whatever time on it is. If it’s today, if it’s in the next week, if it’s in the next month, if it’s in the next year, if it’s the next 10 years. Whatever you want to do, write it out. And then cross out 20% of it because you’re only going to get 80% of it done. And I mean that truly, and it relaxes you. You’re like, “Oh, I don’t have to do it all.”

Pooja: Right.

Camden: So if you’ve got 10 things you want to do today, okay, write one through 10, knock them out. Oh, you get to eight, kind of knackered, just tired, stop. You feel good, keep going. Like you can always add more to it. But I really, yeah, actually after talking it out loud with you for a little bit, like I said, you need a sounding board to figure this stuff out. And right now, I like this podcast because you’ve kind of been a sounding board for me to think retrospectively about a lot of this stuff is like, yeah, cut out 20% of what you think you’re capable of doing because we’re all capable of anything, but you can’t be capable of everything every day.

And so cut out 20% and just knock out the rest of it. And then the rest of the time is now kind of for family and friends. And then to piggyback off that, the other thing is for me, and if you’re an early med student, try this out is treat med school like a job, a really low-paying, arguably negatively paying job, negatively, I was going to say, yeah, like, and just you could study 24 hours a day for 10 years, you still won’t know it all. Instead, treat it like a job, and when that job is done, you’re done. Go home, you know, have a tall glass of water and, you know, get your exercise in and call it a day.

Pooja: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You clock in, you clock out in a way.

Camden: Yeah. Which is antithetical to like 99% of us who are in med school. But you have to shift that mentality that it is a job, very first low-paying job, but you clock in, you clock out, and when you clock out, you’re done, as much as you’re able to.

Pooja: Right. Right. It’s interesting because like I’ve heard so much, and I’m curious to see if you feel the same way is that residency feels a lot better than medical school. And a lot of people have kind of said that residency feels a lot better because they feel like they’re just doing their job and they’re focusing on being good at their job, but they’re not kind of focusing on everything else that’s associated with like climbing the ladder, trying to impress people, getting letters of rec, all of that stuff. And I think, obviously, you know, everyone in residency is a different, you know, circumstance. If you’re trying to go for fellowship or whatever, like it isn’t always there, but it’s definitely less in residency than it was in medical school. I’m curious now that you’re talking about it because you in a way are also my sounding board. I’m wondering if it’s because you literally clock in and clock out of residency versus in medical school that structure isn’t there for you. Does that sound like right to you?

Camden: Like 50% right. Yeah, because you do clock in and clock out.

Pooja: What am I missing?

Camden: The biggest thing honestly for residency for me is like, particularly as someone, I don’t have a fellowship. I’ve already I’m in an integrated track. There is no more fellowship.

Pooja: Got it.

Camden: Like it’s a straight through and then I’m an attending. Like you never stop wanting to impress someone, but in med school, there’s that undercurrent of like, crap, I have to impress people. I need that letter of rec. I need this. Like and that sometimes gets in the way of learning, I’ve seen in a lot of my students. They’re so focused on performing that they get rid of learning. And something that I’ve already enjoyed about residency is that I’ve been able to flip that and I’m here to learn to be the best dang doctor I possibly can be. And of course, I’m going to do a good job, but I’m not there to try to impress someone. I’m there to learn and I’m there to be good and to do good. And if I impress them along the way, great.

But like the long-term goal that I mentioned throughout this entire podcast, that now shifts really to I don’t want to just get in somewhere. It shifts to I want to be the best doctor I could possibly be. And that’s a cool shift, and I think that’s why residency is so much more pleasant because frankly, it’s way the heck more pleasant than med school. Maybe it’s just the specialty I’m in, but like it’s really, really pleasant because you’re A, doing something that you know you like. B, no longer feel that innate desire of I am so low on the totem pole that like the big thing I did today was get a fax from the outpatient hospital and like get that information to add to rounds. Like, yeah, like that was always like a med student thing um at the hospital I was at because it was like a more rural community hospital. Instead, it’s focusing on just learning.

Pooja: Yeah. Thank you for clarifying.

Camden: Does that make sense?

Pooja: It does. And I appreciate you correcting me because I feel like I’m only saying what I have heard from the grapevine. I’ve never experienced residency myself.

Camden: It’s awesome.

Pooja: I mean, hopefully I will, you know, hopefully in a year from now I’ll be like in it. But I appreciate you clarifying that because I think it provides some more insight. So, again, final questions, I promise. If a student could only adopt one time management habit that would make the biggest impact, what should it be? And I think I have a feeling of what you’re going to say, but I’m curious about what would be the one thing you think people should do?

Camden: It sounds silly, but it makes the world of difference is the 5-minute rule.

Pooja: Love it.

Camden: It’s huge. Like I cannot tell you how much of a difference and I think there’s actually a book written on it because the person who taught me it mentioned a book about like the 5-minute rule for getting tasks done. But it gets rid of all of the noise so that when you’re working on what you want to work on, that’s all you’re working on. So dedicated time to do stuff, but if you see something you can knock out quick, just do it.

Pooja: I’m looking it up. There is a book. The one that I’m seeing on Google is written by Rory J. Aplanalp.

Camden: Yeah, open I don’t know yeah. Yeah. But yeah. The 5-Minute Rule to Greatness. No, this is exactly the book. The 5-Minute Rule Technique. Tell yourself you’ll only work on a task for a brief 5-minute period, set a time, well, they’re a little bit more vigorous about it than I am. Set a timer for 5 minutes, do it, and then when it goes off, then you’re done.

Pooja: Sure. Okay. There you have it. I also looked up something earlier. There are 1,440 minutes in a day, if I did it if I remember that correctly. So it sounds like for you, if there are five of those 1,440 that people can take, then to do a task and just get it out of the way, that should be it. And that’s a good takeaway. Okay, good to know. Are there any misconceptions about medical workload and personal life balance that you would like to take this forum here and now uh to clear up?

Camden: Yes. I’m going to again come at it from the perspective of a dad and family. I know I’ve harped on that, but it’s a very big part of my persona right now.

Pooja: No, as it should be.

Camden: Is that you can do all of that. I know like male, female, no matter what, you can do it. One of my colleagues in med school was a single mom of two kids at that point and crushed it. And she did it through really good time management.

Pooja: Yeah.

Camden: And so like, if you’re able to prioritize, then you can, but I’m always against slowing down life for like medicine to an aggressive degree. Like it’s okay to like it delays it a little bit, of course. Our careers are here to allow us to give back to humanity, but at the same time, we cannot let it take the humanity from us. And so like, you know, there’s never a good time to, you know, start that startup, to, you know, have the family or to, you know, hike Mount Kilimanjaro, whatever it is. Like whatever your passion is, that should go on that to-do list. That should go on that Word document, and that should not be at the bottom of it. It should be near the top. And having that goal there then says, “I am going to work towards that.” For me, residency, family. Like those were the two things at the top of my to-do list, for my long-term goals throughout all of med school. And I encourage those that are listening to find your own goals to put at the top of that to-do list because that’s what motivates you every day.

Pooja: Yeah. Absolutely. Like almost like a reason to get up every day.

Camden: Yeah.

Pooja: Yeah. Amazing. Looking back, it sounds like I think I… you know what, I’m not even going to bother asking you because I know the answer because you’ve already described it, but it’s just and correct me if I’m wrong, the strategies or habits that you still use today that you developed. And to me it sounds like the Word document is something you use all the time, the tools in that toolbox that we talked about, and this is a really great way to do the recap, but the hammer, which is our 5-minute rule, which we now found out is in a book by Mr. Aplanalp, if I’m remembering correctly, and the lock to make sure you’re doing it enough.

So like not doing the 5-minute rule every single minute of the day. So out of that 1,440 minutes in a day, you’re not spending all of them or a significant number of them and using this 5-minute rule. But the saw to help cut things out, the tape measure to estimate how long something’s going to take but overestimate by 20% and kind of operate and schedule based on that overestimated number, the clamp that kind of allows you to hold things together but also allows you to loosen up the grip a little bit when as and when you need to. And then our final addition, which was the chisel, which is the way to kind of if you’re looking at a to-do list for the day, cutting it down to 70% to 80% and being proud of what that 70% to 80% was so that you can take the rest of your time and just like be with your family, be with your loved ones, do the things that fill your cup outside of medicine. Is there anything else, Camden, that you feel like was a takeaway for you from this episode?

Camden: You just summarize things wonderfully.

Pooja: Thank you.

Camden: No, like truly, that was that was really great. The only other takeaway, it’s like I said earlier, it’s really fun having a sounding board. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about, you apply them every day, but actually thinking like conceptually about some of these things that you use is, the other takeaway I have is having a sounding board, and that sounding board can be, you know, a hiking trail, it can be water, it can be whatever, it can be, you know, a loved one or a friend or a sibling, whatever it is.

Pooja: Like your podcast co-host, who knows?

Camden: Yeah, exactly. Having a sounding board, I think is really helpful because everything we talked about today is very malleable and it will change day to day. Try not to let it change minute to minute, but, you know, but it’s a dynamic process and so you want to be able to adapt and pull out the different tools when you need it.

Pooja: Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you so much for joining us. And to our listeners, thank you for listening. We have several episodes planned out. Including episodes about interviews, including episodes about the mental and emotional side of pursuing a career in medicine. I think what I want to get, what I want all of my listeners and for all of you to kind of take away is that we’re all in this together, and the feelings that you feel, whether it be burnout, whether it be overwhelm, whether it be anxiety of what’s to come ahead, it is something that we’ve all experienced, and having a network, having people, and having resources like this to lean on is kind of what it’s all about. So thank you all for listening to Pursuit of Practice brought to you by Blueprint, and thank you again, Camden, for being an amazing, amazing guest today.

Camden: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Pooja: All right. See you guys next time.

This is a podcast created by physicians and medical educators, but is in no way to be construed as medical advice. All of the opinions shared are those of individual people and are not reflective of their associated institutions or of Blueprint Test Prep.

That’s a wrap on this episode of Pursuit of Practice. Remember, you’re not in this alone. Head to blueprintprep.com for MCAT prep courses, board exam prep, free resources, and more to support every stage of your journey to and through medical school.