Special Post from Lisa Papara

As we enter the midterm season, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with all the upcoming assessments and exams. In these times, it’s important to step back, take a deep breath, and approach this seemingly impending doom with a new perspective. I recently listened to a great TED talk given by Dr. Darria Long who covers a few ways to “triage a ‘crazy busy’ lifestyle” that I think everyone would benefit from. One of the concepts that really stuck with me was assigning ‘codes’ to your tasks, the same way a healthcare professional would do certain scenarios in a hospital. This is a wonderful way to prioritize your tasks while adding some much-needed urgency to those which need doing ASAP!

I hope you all take some time out of your day to listen to this talk and hopefully apply some of these tips to your lives, especially during the ‘crazy busy’ midterm and final seasons. And before I sign off, I would like to remind you all that it is OKAY to be overwhelmed, stressed and not feel okay. However, I urge you all to put your mental health at the very top of your priority list and make sure that you give yourselves some well-deserved breaks from studying to let your brains rest and recover from all that hard work you’ve been putting in!

Thanks for reading until the end, have a wonderful rest of the semester and most importantly, take care of yourselves!

Lisa Papara

MedSpecs Co-President 2022-2023
Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/darria_long_an_er_doctor_on_triaging_your_crazy_busy_life?rid=0rPdgURQIuWn