By: Amy DeZern, MD, MHS
Thanks to the many happy choices I have made over the years, my personal and professional lives are full and busy in 2025.
However, that doesn’t mean that day-to-day life is straightforward and stress-free. I am a mother of four children (and a dog) as well as a division director for heme malignancies in my cancer center. I have to laugh sometimes when people ask me how I manage, and I usually acknowledge that “some days it’s easier than others to keep all the balls in the air.”
There are ups and downs for us all—personally and professionally. As my children grow up, the hurdles have also increased with harder questions for them. How will sports tryouts go? Will we survive the middle school years (again)? When do we start planning for college?
And while the ups and downs of parenting are a tale as old as time, in medicine, especially academics, it seems like we have more downs than ups as of late. Some of those hurdles are and have been ever present: Will the patient benefit from the new treatment? Will we get the next grant? Will that paper be published? But others are new, and for most of us, unprecedented. Will a hiring freeze impact growth of our division? Are all faculty members supported in a balanced fashion? Are hospitals going to weather changes in Medicare and Medicaid funding? What will happen to our cancer center in the era of changing NIH funding? And so on.
In this uncertain time, it is challenging for me, as I’m sure it is for many of you, to keep a balance between my personal and professional lives. But the truth is that there are significant parallels. Just as my children are learning to exist and (hopefully) to thrive in the world, so we in medicine are also trying to adapt and (hopefully) thrive in a rapidly changing environment. I am frequently reminded—more often than I might have thought—that many lessons transcend any particular age and setting.
As I work hard to be a better mother and division leader, I do search for and draw on messages that speak to me to muddle through the less good times. One is a mantra instilled in me since I was an intern: Aequanimitas! This was one of Sir William Osler’s most famous essays, delivered to new doctors at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. In the essay, Osler, one of the founding members of Johns Hopkins Hospital, advocates two qualities “imperturbability” and “equanimity,” which he defined as “coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances.” This is currently not always easy for me at home or at work, but I do aspire to Osler’s ideal and so repeat the mantra “Aequanimitas” to myself both at work and at home. Before I walk into a sick patient’s room: “Aequanimitas.” Before I meet with my administrative leadership: “Aequanimitas.” Before reviewing budgets and effort and time and resources: “Aequanimitas.” And yes, when I get home late, and there is homework to be done, and sports practices to attend, and dinner to make: “Aequanimitas.”
There are no easy answers or solutions to the problems we face as a profession, as a specialty, and as a society. There will be hard decisions to make, and much uncertainty to face. In these fragile, stressful, and disconcerting times, I hope you all can find moments of calm, and reflection, and aequanimitas.
