Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 Articles
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2022
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
CMAJ
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN
CMAJ

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 Articles
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2022
  • Visit CMAJ on Facebook
  • Follow CMAJ on Twitter
  • Follow CMAJ on Pinterest
  • Follow CMAJ on Youtube
  • Follow CMAJ on Instagram
Query

Query

CMAJ September 12, 2006 175 (6) 706; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.060861

My vacation starts in a day.

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

Figure. Photo by: Fred Sebastian

One day. My vacation.

It's only a week, but it's mine, all mine, and I'm taking it, and I'm not looking back.

Plans? Just fishing with my daughter on the Saint John River. And swimming at the pool. And making some desultory stops at museums. A few back-forths on river ferries. Nothing, really. A whole lot of nothing. Nothing, intentionally. No, wait. I will do one thing intentionally. I'll buy and read a Sunday paper. Yes, I'll do that.

One thing I won't do, intentionally. I won't think of what will happen while I'm gone, I won't fret about my flock, I won't worry about how much work will pile up until my return. You see, I've learned a little secret: the world turns without me. People will get sick without me; they'll get better without me; and I'll only be gone a week.

One week. I'm giddy.

What to pack? No pager. No stethoscope. No lab coat. No dress shoes. No belt! Yes to shorts and golf shirts. For I have decided, for my vacation, that the weather will be fine, nice, exemplary. It's an occasion, my vacation. It deserves sun. I believe this so firmly that I've resolutely decided not to check the forecast. What good will it do? If it rains, it rains. But it's not going to rain — it's my vacation.

I'm going to go somewhere, but it's not going to be anywhere. I'm going to, in the self-help vernacular, “take care of myself.” I'm not going to have one medical thought. No diagnosing ailments among shoppers at the local grocery store (an unfortunate hobby of mine), no medical magazine perusing, no obsessive checking of the on-call pager to make sure I haven't missed a page. No. None of this. Just breakfasts at noon, and evening swims, and Sunday reads.

There was a time in my life when this would seem empty, or at least idle. No more. I'm embracing torpor. I need it. Slow slow slow. Perhaps I've finally taken the advice I've dispensed ad nauseum to countless stressballs; I'd tell them to eat right and exercise, but also to try to stop juggling so many things at once and, yes, to take care of themselves. First. Before anyone else.

That's me, right now. Taking care of myself all the way up the Saint John, a river that begins rather modestly in Maine and empties rather magnificently in southern New Brunswick. Why do I know this? Because it's important to me right now that I know it. Not the red flags of dyspepsia, not the differential for secondary hypertension. I need to know about a boat, and how I'm going to get on it, and how I'm going to operate it. Knowing the water a little bit, knowing its origin and its mouth, helps the process. It's like knowing the patient — the context of the illness sometimes reveals the illness itself.

But that's far too medical a thought. Must stop. Must bring along books like Lisa Moore's Alligator, like Austin Clarke's Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack, like Seamus Heaney's North, like Pauline Kael's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.

Holiday reading. Reading for pleasure. My vacation.

— Dr. Ursus

Content

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Collections
  • Sections
  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • Early releases

Information for

  • Advertisers
  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • CMA Members
  • Media
  • Reprint requests
  • Subscribers

About

  • General Information
  • Journal staff
  • Editorial Board
  • Advisory Panels
  • Governance Council
  • Journal Oversight
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright and Permissions
  • Accessibiity
  • CMA Civility Standards
CMAJ Group

Copyright 2022, CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

To receive any of these resources in an accessible format, please contact us at CMAJ Group, 500-1410 Blair Towers Place, Ottawa ON, K1J 9B9; p: 1-888-855-2555; e: cmajgroup@cmaj.ca

Powered by HighWire