Please wait...

The Solution: Mini-Vacations

By Jin Bo Tang, MD

Relaxation could be rare for a busy surgeon with an academic burden. However, taking one or two weeks away is not uncommon for surgeons in many countries.

How could you find relaxation if you do not regularly take vacation or your schedule cannot afford being entirely away from any profession-related activities? I am an editor for The Journal of Hand Surgery (European), and hardly can I get away for doing nothing at all for a few days.

Instead of a long vacation for weeks, I found I can take mini-vacations in not so rare occasions. Here I detail how I have taken these mini-vacations last month, May 2018.

My relaxed overnight stopover in Edinburgh enabled me to plan mountain hiking soon after sunrise to the Holyrood Park. I started at 5 am, walking to the park through almost entirely empty streets (rarely seen in daytime), and arrived at the top of the cliffs of Salisbury Crags around 6:10 am (Figure 1). I waited about 10 minutes to have better sunlight to the castle and the hill to get better pictures. I started downhill at 6:30 am, with nice walking around the lakes and along jogging paths until 9 am. I still had enough time to pick up my suitcase from hotel at 12 am, boarding the next flight in the afternoon.

Last week, I had pleasant 4-day visit in Korea to speak at the Korean Hand and Microsurgery Conference and then had a relaxed one-and-a-half day tour in Deagu, Gwangju, and Gyeongju, which was very refreshing (Figure 2).

Yesterday I planned an early arrival to Jinan city, China for a meeting starting in the evening. The entire afternoon was just for relaxed walking and sitting in the spring area for 3 hours, doing or thinking about nothing else. Jinan is a city of spring, and the next two days will be the Congress of Association of Chinese-speaking Hand Surgeons United (ACU). I even had a very relaxed and enjoyable mini-vacation for one day by planning an early arrival to the city and enjoying peaceful free time in the city (Figure 3).

I usually have to work after returning from the mini-vacation in the daytime; the evening and early morning are those I have to spend writing papers/essays, preparing slides, reviewing or editing papers, and communicationing with colleagues (worldwide). Today, I had to get up rather early for teleconference at 5:30 with editors of JHS-E through BT telephone conferencing and in the evening I will have to have a few small discussion meetings, but the mini-vacations can be planned as I have showed above with very enjoyable, relaxed free daytime in beautiful city Jinan.

I sometimes get mails or heard people saying to me “You appear to never need sleep—you responded so swiftly.” But, I do sleep, and sleep well. I write, edit, or review interweaving with many relaxations, reading novels, working in gardens, swimming in the sea, kayaking in the bay, climbing mountains, sitting on beaches, chatting with friends….The summer time of this year is coming, I will continue to do so as I was doing for years. For those who cannot afford long vacations, I encourage you to have mini-vacations to keep your mind fresh, your body strong, family close, and your life balanced and more pleasant.

Figures and Legends

Figure 1 A. Early morning at 5:25, on the way to the mountain. B. Arrival at the top. C and D, beautiful pictures taken about 1 hour after  the sun emerging from sea, when the sunlight was perpendicular to the castle wall and steeples (C), and Nelson Monument and National Monument (D). With the warm-colored early sunlight, the pictures are much better than most pictures of the old town and the Calton Hill that you may find in Google. E. A peacock on the hill enjoying the rising sun.

Figure 2. The tour to Gyeongju with Korean friends.

Figure 3. A. The picture of the “Spring City Center Square” taken at 6:20 in the morning, after an international conference call among JHS-E editors from 5:30 to 6:15 on May 31. B. The relaxed entire afternoon started with wandering in spring area of the city center. Jinan is the city of “springs.” You can see springs everywhere. C. Citizens take the spring water home as drinking water or for brewing tea. D-F: sculptures telling history and stories about springs in the city. G. Chatting with an old friend for hours by the springs. The spring on the background is called “Five Lotus Spring.” H. The close-up view of the “Five Lotus Spring”: the spring in the center with appearance of a giant lotus.

Comment (1)
Anonymous
June 15, 2018 1:25 am

Amazing article and a great advice , I am also following your technique of enjoying whenever we can , I think the key is not keep waiting for that one week long dream vacation , but utilise all the small breaks we get more fruitfully . But I have noticed that the more busy you are the more relaxation you can Sneak in

Reply

Leave comments

Your email is safe with us.