As of tomorrow, I’ll officially be in my 4th and final year of residency (is this journey over yet?!).
During our third year we largely work independently in outpatient clinics. I have three supervisors with whom I meet with one hour a week. My interactions and recommendations for patients are reviewed.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been reflecting upon what I’ve learned.
Freedom and trust are essential – Part of working independently is finding your own style. Part of mentoring is allowing your mentee to do so. With out the trust of my supervisors and freedom to make mistakes, growing into a style that fits me would have been significantly compromised. Did I make mistakes? Sure, that’s a given. As a supervisor, the key is when to intervene. Is someone making the same error over and over? Is the mistake in question so large & glaring that immediate action is necessary? A coach can’t be so nervous or controlling that they suggest a different course of action every step of the way.
Translated to trading: Allow yourself to make mistakes. Keep your mistakes manageable. No one’s perfect, especially when it comes to the markets. If you don’t allow yourself to make mistakes, how do you know what your flaws truly are? If you are working with someone, allow them to make mistakes and find their own style. It’s best to intervene when the same mistakes are repetitive or significant. Give up total control and you’ll often be surprised by the end result.
Strike when the thought is hot - When treating patients, they’ll often bring up a wide variety of problems. Some are more pressing than others. If they bring up something important, I make it a point to address it that very moment. Dealing with the thought in the current moment will be infinitely more fruitful.
Translated to trading: Do you have particular changes you’d like to make to your trading plan? Are you actively thinking about your upcoming journal entry? (Bonus for bloggers: Are you brainstorming for a future blog post?) In the preceding scenarios, you should do everything you can do translate those thoughts to paper immediately. It’s the freshest in your mind . It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can always improve upon and revisit the subjects later. Waiting to document what you’ve just figured out is a waste of mental time and energy.
Work frustrations - Being a part time trader introduces another possible source of personal stress that can spill over into trading. I’ve generally found that when external frustrations are high, be it from work or otherwise, it’s best to get those emotions in check before placing trades.
I’m a person who hates waiting around, particularly at work. If I’m working, I want to be treating patients. There’s nothing more frustrating than a no show, or a poorly booked clinic. Can you imagine having a half hour of down time in between each patient? That wasn’t always the case, but certainly was relevant.
To give you a bit of insight into the realm of medicine these days: At both of the clinics I worked at (one is HMO based and the other is the VA), I offered to see more patients in exchange for more flexibility/control over my schedule. Request denied. They probably thought I was crazy.
It turns out that I wasn’t able to use that time as productively as I liked. My solution was to catch up on reading (links, books, etc). That allowed me to make use of the downtime and keep frustration at a minimum.
Bring on 4th year 
I’m looking forward to it.
