Introduction: Hope everyone is doing okay as we approach the holiday season. It has been a challenging time for most due to the tridemic, staff shortages, and so many other personal reasons. In the spirit of offering thoughts about pursuing wellness, I share with you a piece from Anita Kostecki, a graduate of the Family Health Center for Worcester who now works at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She read this reflection at this fall's MedMoth and introduced it by noting the following:

Ever since I was a medical student in the late 1980s, I have used swimming as a stress reliever. I almost religiously always go to swim post call, now in the mornings, but I used to do it even in the evenings, when we worked all day post call (would sometimes need to take a power nap in my car to make that work lol). In fact, until clinical clerkships as a 3rd year medical student, I used to use running as a primary form of exercise but once I started on the wards, my feet would ache so much if I ran after standing/walking all day, I decided to switch over to swimming. I took an adult stroke class from a older nun who taught at the YWCA near the Worcester Public Library and then never looked back. The most trouble I ever got in as an FM resident was when a pediatric attending reported me to our residency director (Jim Pease) because he accused me of leaving too early post call "to go swimming" but to this day I think he was just jealous and that I left at the correct time....at any rate, swimming has been a blessing in my life and always helps me to re-orient back to the outside world after a call night when things go on that I imagine most regular folks would never even consider possible!

As an avid open water swimmer who also took a course as an adult from a mindful swim master, I concur. See what you think after reading her poem.