Balancing clinical and academic work

Many clinical academics say that balancing clinical and academic work adds variety to their week, helping to prevent monotony and burnout. However, it also requires careful time management across both professional roles.

The tips below can help you maintain a healthy balance between your clinical work, academic responsibilities and personal life.

Be realistic

Have a realistic sense about what you can achieve and over what timescale. You will need to juggle many different priorities in your career, these may include:

• your patients
• your research
• your personal wellbeing
• your family
• grant applications
• writing papers
• marking assignments
• your collaborators
• requests from public/students/journalists

The priority of these may shift over time depending on your workload, training needs, personal circumstances or unexpected events—after all, nobody in 2019 could have predicted needing to pause training and research to respond to COVID-19.

Having a good sense of your own capabilities, strengths and weaknesses, your current capacity, and the priority level of a task can help you plan your time. Be aware that you will often need to set self-imposed deadlines, particularly for your academic work.

Set yourself some boundaries and try to stick to them

Start by deciding how many hours a week you realistically want to work and plan your time from there. This limit may change throughout your career. Setting a daily finish time, restricting evening or weekend work and creating ‘do not disturb’ hours for your email inbox can help maintain balance.

Be collaborative

Healthcare and research is becoming increasingly collaborative, with organisations integrating their services and teams moving toward interdisciplinary working. Networking is an important skill in clinical academia, particularly for those who are not on structured training programmes like the integrated pathway. You will find that the greater a network you build for yourself, the more opportunities will come your way.

Collaborating early in your career also shows you that others face the same challenges you do. In a competitive and stressful field, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or undervalued. A network of trusted colleagues can support you through these moments and help you recognise imposter syndrome for what it really is.

Learn when to say no

When starting out, it can be tempting to accept every offer of collaboration, work experience or extracurricular work, especially if you’re still exploring your specialty. While enthusiasm is good, taking on too much can lead to burnout or force you to back out of commitments. It’s better to be selective than risk gaining a reputation for being unreliable.

Find the right mentor

The role of a mentor is often confused with that of a supervisor, but they serve different purposes. Your supervisor formally oversees your training and progress. While they may provide some personal support, their primary role isn’t to offer impartial guidance on personal or emotional matters. A mentor, who is more removed from your day-to-day work, can provide this perspective.

Not all schools or universities offer formal mentoring schemes, but you can often arrange an informal mentoring relationship if needed.

Make time for your mental and physical health

Simple habits like getting enough sleep, eating well and exercising regularly can make a big difference. A self-care routine is important, but it will look different for everyone. Meditation, creative activities or simply taking regular time to relax and clear your head can all help you recharge.

Have other interests

You don’t need to be a concert-level pianist or a county-standard runner, but it’s important to have activities you enjoy, even if you’re not very skilled at them. Spend time with friends and family, as relationships need attention to thrive.

Keep asking yourself if you’re having fun

If you are, great—keep doing it. If not, it might be time to try something different.