A few years ago, Jerry Rogoff, M.D., became so engrossed in a woodworking project that he lost track of time.
An intercom system links his Vermont home to a workshop on the property. At some point in the day, his wife's voice resonated over the intercom speaker.
"Are you going to eat today?"
"Is it lunchtime?" Dr. Rogoff asked.
"No. It's suppertime," his wife replied.
He had been in the workshop 8 hours, but "had absolutely no idea what time it was," said Dr. Rogoff, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who practices in Boston. "There's a clock in the shop, but I never looked at it. I was totally absorbed," he said. "Woodworking does wonders for me."
About every other weekend, he and his wife drive from their Boston-area home to their second home in Vermont. There he has made two dining room tables, a chest of drawers, and children's furnitureall for family or friends.
He considers the hobby a form of solace and a way to be engaged in something. "It's physically creative; in psychiatry, you're not. Psychiatry is very sedentary. In the workshop I'm active, moving, and doing something all the time all day long," he said. "There's a real sense of working with my hands and creating something."
Physicians "need this type of play," he added. "They need something to get away from the intensity and pressure of work and both relax and fulfill themselves. That improves one's life, one's relationships with spouse and family, and I think it improves one's work with patients."
Dr. Rogoff first took up woodworking during his residency in 1968 at Massachusetts Mental Health Center as a way to "decompress, debrief, and escape from the pressures of work." He bought a radial arm saw and built on basic skills he learned in junior high shop class in Detroit. One of the first things he made was an analytic couch out of walnut for his psychoanalytic practice. It remains a fixture in his office.
He noted that woodworking provides him with a tangible measure of success that isn't always attainable in his field. "Psychiatric work generally goes very slowly," he explained. "You get some quick results with medication, but on the whole, your changes are measured in millimeters, not in miles. In the workshop, I measure them in miles. You create something. There's real change, and it's quick. You're in control of it. None of that applies to the psychiatric process. There you try your best, but you're often not fully in control of it and it's somewhat unpredictable. Change is slow. In the end, you don't always have something to show for your labors."
Carl C. Bell, M.D., said it's crucial for physicians to have a hobby outside of their job. "Medicine is ugly work, because you're constantly confronting trauma, death, disability, pain, and suffering," said Dr. Bell, professor of psychiatry and public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago "I have three principles: Save some lives, make some money, and have some fun. That's what I look for in a job. Sometimes two out of three aren't bad. You have to maintain balance. Otherwise, you're not good to anybody. From a hobby perspective, that's important."
Francis E. Rushton, M.D., can identify with that notion. About three times a year, he goes on brief backpacking adventures to clear his mind, usually with his sons or with other pediatricians. Because of his hectic work schedule, "I don't always have a lot of opportunities to spend time with my kids," said Dr. Rushton, who practices in Beaufort, S.C. "I'm so busy here in the office that when it comes to vacation time, it's hard for me to stop and sit. Somehow I just seem to keep moving. For me, backpacking is a way to stay active, but it's mindless. After 2-3 days, all of the worries of the office disappear and the only thing I have to worry about is, 'am I going to freeze to death?' or 'do I have anything to eat?'"
His journeys have included trails in the Sierra Nevadas, the Yukon Territory, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Baxter State Park in Maine, as well as footpaths in Norway, New Zealand, and Venezuela.
"It's a time for me to communicate with my kids, it's a time for me to see a different part of the country, and it's a time for me to physically work out some of the frustrations of the office," Dr. Rushton said. "[These frustrations are] physically taxing to me, and there's a sense of accomplishment when I get done. It's a cleansing of the mind. I come back, and I'm ready to charge forth again at work."