About halfway through my second year of fellowship, in the middle of a series of disagreeing e-mails between me and one of my attendings, I realized the crux of the problem
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I've been trying to do the same thing with papers & paperwork at home...it's frustrating. I wish I could just transition to electronic means because software like Pocket would allow me to tag things with both "rehab medicine" and "accomodations" (to use your example), but my brain prefers hard copy whenever possible.
The lumping vs splitting is interesting...I think working in medical research made me more of a splitter than I normally would have been...
Yeah. . . there is no search function for file boxes, is there? I did think about making a spreadsheet at some point listing which folder is in which box, but I am NOT going to make a spreadsheet telling which piece of paper is in which folder.
I like electronic format for some things, but I'm still attached to at least some of these pieces of paper. Like graded college papers and pamphlets from different organizations. I've used electronics medical records systems that are supposedly "paperless" by scanning in papers and. . . it works for some things but really not for others.
I wonder how much of lump/split tendencies are innate to people and how much are reinforced by training and environment. I'm actually very autistically detail oriented in a lot of ways, but then I like to categorize the details. Or put them into file boxes. . .
I went with the toss everything pre-graduate degree wholesale method. Grad stuff is collecting dust sorted by class, except for the few things I reference all the time which are out among the relevant classroom materials (voc, Deafblind...) I doubt I'll ever touch any of the rest of it again. And now I do keep everything electronically in Pocket or Evernote. Papers just get lost or forgotten about. If it is electronic I can find it again.
I've been amazed I've been able to toss as much as I have. I got rid of summer premed physics problem sets. I couldn't bring myself to toss the quizzes. But I got rid of the problem sets. And a bunch of my chemistry notes. I'm finding it's easier to keep stuff and keep going than to agonize over what to keep, so organization as a primary goal and reduction as a secondary.
But yeah. So OK. Do articles on newborns with lung disease go into a respiratory/cardiovascular folder, an ICU/ER folder or do I create a separate section on preemies? How about metabolic syndromes - endocrine, genetics or development? I've never been good at these edges - it's why I always preferred to write up my patient notes based on problems rather than body systems. Pneumonia is a problem, and I don't have to decide if it's pulm or ID. Right now I'm making piles with temporary headings and then comparing the sizes and moving stuff back and forth.
If only indeed. I may trial an exclusion clause. Endocrine UNLESS relevant to development. ICU UNLESS relevant to long-term NICU follow-up. Don't ask me where I'm going to put the unlesses. The main reason I am wanting to keep NICU stuff handy is that I may be asked to give a talk to med students on long-term care of the NICU grad. I've recently done a talk on the neurodevelopmental follow-up but don't have slides made for other body systems
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I think a sub-folder makes sense for things like the varieties of medical documents. They're all medical, but some have other uses that make it both meaningful and useful to have them easy to separate out within the original medical folder.
Subfolders are definitely going to be some of the answer. At this moment, going to buy more folders, and tape to label folders, is the only acceptable answer.
Two things. First, they're your things, so your use cases are important. Second, intellectual arrangement is more important than physical arrangement. As long as you know what box it's in--or should be in--it doesn't matter what box that is.
My suggestion:
Series I: Works by others (e.g. ADHD, the papers arranged by diagnosis, which you expect to reference and add to) Series II: Med school rotations (minus separated materials in Series I) Series III: Courses (e.g. Disability Law) Series IV: Medical paperwork (subseries or -folders for test accommodation, vaccination, etc.) Series V: Financial (can do subs if needed) Series VI: Employment Series VII: Conferences/Organizations
If all else fails, tack on Miscellaneous; Correspondence could be useful, too.
Well yeah, if I could remember where things should go, it wouldn't matter as much. But I don't. It's clearly a matter of lack of brain organization.
So I need a specific piece of paper and I go through piles and piles of things looking for it. Like my vaccine records. I'm looking for them now because I need them to apply for my job. I've got some in with other medical stuff, and some in with my med school application paperwork, and some I thought were with my fellowship orientation paperwork, if I could only FIND my fellowship orientation paperwork. . . and so I mentally categorize vaccinations as a medical thing, but in reality I only need them for school and employment things. Which cognitive dissonances.
Make a finding aid. Seriously. It doesn't need to be an item level inventory. It's prosthetic memory, a place to store the organizational information that isn't in your brain.
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The lumping vs splitting is interesting...I think working in medical research made me more of a splitter than I normally would have been...
Reply
I like electronic format for some things, but I'm still attached to at least some of these pieces of paper. Like graded college papers and pamphlets from different organizations. I've used electronics medical records systems that are supposedly "paperless" by scanning in papers and. . . it works for some things but really not for others.
I wonder how much of lump/split tendencies are innate to people and how much are reinforced by training and environment. I'm actually very autistically detail oriented in a lot of ways, but then I like to categorize the details. Or put them into file boxes. . .
Reply
Grad stuff is collecting dust sorted by class, except for the few things I reference all the time which are out among the relevant classroom materials (voc, Deafblind...) I doubt I'll ever touch any of the rest of it again.
And now I do keep everything electronically in Pocket or Evernote. Papers just get lost or forgotten about. If it is electronic I can find it again.
Reply
But yeah. So OK. Do articles on newborns with lung disease go into a respiratory/cardiovascular folder, an ICU/ER folder or do I create a separate section on preemies? How about metabolic syndromes - endocrine, genetics or development? I've never been good at these edges - it's why I always preferred to write up my patient notes based on problems rather than body systems. Pneumonia is a problem, and I don't have to decide if it's pulm or ID. Right now I'm making piles with temporary headings and then comparing the sizes and moving stuff back and forth.
Reply
Your mental organization is by problem so that's the organization your file system should use.
I know, if only it was that easy.
I'm on "vacation" - we should chat if your computer will play nice.
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Two things. First, they're your things, so your use cases are important. Second, intellectual arrangement is more important than physical arrangement. As long as you know what box it's in--or should be in--it doesn't matter what box that is.
My suggestion:
Series I: Works by others (e.g. ADHD, the papers arranged by diagnosis, which you expect to reference and add to)
Series II: Med school rotations (minus separated materials in Series I)
Series III: Courses (e.g. Disability Law)
Series IV: Medical paperwork (subseries or -folders for test accommodation, vaccination, etc.)
Series V: Financial (can do subs if needed)
Series VI: Employment
Series VII: Conferences/Organizations
If all else fails, tack on Miscellaneous; Correspondence could be useful, too.
Reply
So I need a specific piece of paper and I go through piles and piles of things looking for it. Like my vaccine records. I'm looking for them now because I need them to apply for my job. I've got some in with other medical stuff, and some in with my med school application paperwork, and some I thought were with my fellowship orientation paperwork, if I could only FIND my fellowship orientation paperwork. . . and so I mentally categorize vaccinations as a medical thing, but in reality I only need them for school and employment things. Which cognitive dissonances.
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