Preparing meals in med school

[NLengr]

On 3/8/2019 at 1:07 PM, blah1234 said:

Yea I find self-care lectures demeaning as they assume that residents and medical students don't know how to take care of themselves like children. The working conditions simply do not allow you to be a human being at times. 

They were incredibly demeaning and a waste of precious time. 

The self care lectures are just done to check a box and pretend the university and hospital care about residents. When the royal college or accreditation Canada or whoever comes by every few years they say "oh yeah, we deeply care about burnout and overwork. We provide teaching about it". But the university/hospital never really takes any resl action on their end to help residents. 

[brady23]

8 hours ago, NLengr said:

They were incredibly demeaning and a waste of precious time. 

 The self care lectures are just done to check a box and pretend the university and hospital care about residents. When the royal college or accreditation Canada or whoever comes by every few years they say "oh yeah, we deeply care about burnout and overwork. We provide teaching about it". But the university/hospital never really takes any resl action on their end to help residents. 

How do you think they could improve this? 

I agree - the resillience and self-care lectures are practically useless (ex: Get in a group of 3 and talk to each other about what you do when you're stressed for 10 minutes lol)

[ellorie]

2 hours ago, brady23 said:

How do you think they could improve this? 

I agree - the resillience and self-care lectures are practically useless (ex: Get in a group of 3 and talk to each other about what you do when you're stressed for 10 minutes lol)

I think they could improve it by instead giving us time away from work to eat, sleep, see our friends, and attend to our basic medical needs. 

[NLengr]

3 hours ago, ellorie said:

I think they could improve it by instead giving us time away from work to eat, sleep, see our friends, and attend to our basic medical needs. 

Agreed. If they actually cared they could simply stop treating residents like indentured servants. 

[brady23]

On 3/10/2019 at 5:49 PM, ellorie said:

I think they could improve it by instead giving us time away from work to eat, sleep, see our friends, and attend to our basic medical needs. 

Do you mean in clerkship and residency? Like having a 4 day week instead of 5 day week clerkship? Or lower frequency call? 

[OwnerOfTheTARDIS]

6 hours ago, brady23 said:

Do you mean in clerkship and residency? Like having a 4 day week instead of 5 day week clerkship? Or lower frequency call? 

I’m fine with a 5 day week, but on some rotations (especially surgical) a ‘day’ can be 6am-6:30pm plus whatever the call schedule is. And for some sub-specialties call only goes to 11pm so you don’t get a post call day.

[ellorie]

12 hours ago, brady23 said:

Do you mean in clerkship and residency? Like having a 4 day week instead of 5 day week clerkship? Or lower frequency call? 

What I really mean is, when they say to themselves “our residents are exhausted and burned out, we need to allocate 1-3 hours to resident wellness” instead of planning some awful seminar with readings, they say to the residents “residents, we see that you are exhausted and burned out. Here is 1-3 hours to improve your wellness. Do with it as you will.”

[ellorie]

Our program just came out with like a ten part evening seminar with readings as part of their resident wellness initiative. It isn’t mandatory or anything but still. Like, what???? It sounds somewhat interesting but guaranteed will not make me more well  

how about 1-3 hours in the morning some day where I can just sleep or go to the dentist or whatever?

[JohnGrisham]

5 hours ago, ellorie said:

Our program just came out with like a ten part evening seminar with readings as part of their resident wellness initiative. It isn’t mandatory or anything but still. Like, what???? It sounds somewhat interesting but guaranteed will not make me more well  

how about 1-3 hours in the morning some day where I can just sleep or go to the dentist or whatever?

Its silly but trying to book basic things like car repairs, dentist and other things that require in person 9-5 is very difficult.

[chiynadoll]

Not in med school yet but currently busy with something 16 hours a day or so and live with someone whos MIA for even more hours a day, so I usually only have 30 min to make dinner and the next day's lunch. 

For easy meals, I highly recommend an instant pot if you're someone who at least has some knowledge of slow cooker recipes. I put frozen meat, some veggies and a bit of water into the pot, program it to start warming up/pressure cook 6-8ish hours later and stay on warm afterward. Because it's currently still cold af, and the thing is sealed tight when closed, the meat takes most of the 6 hours to defrost anyway. I then throw in some flavouring agents and dig in to some nice curry/stew/soup/etc. Great for the days where I just don't have time to defrost meat or need to eat asap after coming home. I also stock up on discount dumplings at T&T (or any kind of frozen foods that are easy to cook or re-heat, and are healthy-ish). 6 minutes on a pan and dinner is served. 

 

As for meal preps, typically I just buy whatever is on sale at the grocery store and then try to come up with a plan for the week and arrange my groceries so I can just grab and cook, but I do have a few staples that are just very versatile:

Chicken breasts can get very cheap at Save-Ons about once or twice a month (if you live near one) for about $20/3kgs, around 15-20 pieces or so. Lasts a good 2-3 weeks. Learn a few go-to chicken recipes and you'll always have some form of lean protein (ie. teriyaki sauce is just 1 part soy sauce, 1 part sugar and whatever you want to add to give it some spice). I freeze them individually so I can defrost 1-2 at a time the night before. 

It gets difficult sometimes getting in fresh fruits and veggies unless you're the salad type (which I am definitely not) but salads are certainly quick and easy if you're into it. Otherwise 2 min-blanched broccoli, cauliflower, onions, carrots, and celery make for a quick "steamed mixed vegetables" side. 

For carbs, I do cheat and buy instant mashed potatoes, but rice (if you have a rice cooker) is easy and if you season the water, can change it up so it's not super boring all the time.  

 

HelloFresh and those meal kits are great to get you started in figuring out ingredient combos and what not, but once you learn a handful of go-to recipes, it's much cheaper to plan out meals yourself than to rely on their service. I find that a fully loaded meal (1-2 proteins, veggies, carbs and dessert) typically costs me about $5-6 dollars a person, less if its a simpler meal, and HelloFresh is minimum $10 or so? 

[Med Eye]

22 hours ago, JohnGrisham said:

Its silly but trying to book basic things like car repairs, dentist and other things that require in person 9-5 is very difficult.

So true. Hard to fit in a 9-5 world when you don't operate in one!!!

[ellorie]

Yeah vegetables are my biggest hurdle. I hate them. 

[NLengr]

On 3/13/2019 at 10:40 AM, ellorie said:

Our program just came out with like a ten part evening seminar with readings as part of their resident wellness initiative. It isn’t mandatory or anything but still. Like, what???? It sounds somewhat interesting but guaranteed will not make me more well  

how about 1-3 hours in the morning some day where I can just sleep or go to the dentist or whatever?

My hospital is pushing to add a "burnout review" to our annual evaluations. I expect it will be 100% bullshit with the hospital blaming physicians for any "burnout" identified and using those results vindictivly against us. I have zero confidence it will be helpful in any way shape or form and can only be hurtful.

I can't wait for some non physician administration moron to lecture me about how to be a surgeon.