Hello there! I’m Dr. Jillian Bybee, a pediatric critical care medicine physician and leader in wellness and medical education. Humans Leading explores the messy bits of being a human leading and working in healthcare, but it’s for anyone who is looking to acknowledge that life is full of ups and downs. Make sure to subscribe to get my posts delivered right to your inbox. Thanks for being here.
If you’ve been on social media, Substack, or any corner of the internet lately, you’ve likely seen at least one (if not dozens of) year in review posts or celebratory lists.
Many of these contain a catalog of achievements that the author has celebrated throughout 2023- a kind of highlight-reel for the year gone by.
As I wrote about last week, I find that this time of the year lends itself well to reflection.
But, sadly, many 2023 recaps don’t promote this type of reflection.
Instead, they feature a highlight reel of the author’s life which we end up comparing ourselves to.
So, instead of adding my own version of this type of post to the mix, I’ve decided to celebrate the unexpected thing that has blossomed for me this year: Creativity.
I hope today’s post can provide the inspiration you need to try something in 2024 that will bring you joy.
As a younger person, I enjoyed photography, journaling, collaging, collecting quotes, playing the piano, watercolor painting, and doodling.
I never considered myself an artist, a writer, or a musician, though I was all of these things in some ways. They were parts of the whole me. And they coexisted with the scholarly part of me who was working to become a physician.
But, somewhere along the decades I spent getting to my goal, I put my creativity aside bit-by-bit. I bought into the myth that doctors are not artists. We “don’t have time” to be.
Fortunately, I was rescued from this myth by a series of events that started in late 2022 and blossomed throughout 2023.
In late 2022, my piano arrived from its cross-country trip (after leaving my childhood home) and was set up in my home. This marked the first time I’d had a piano in my house for 20 years.
My toddler son loves music, and his requests to “play pee-noh” have rekindled the joy of reading and making music (quite imperfectly). It is great to have an outlet for my creativity that also improves my wellbeing and allows me to turn the “thinking” part of my brain down for a while.
At the beginning of 2023, I was asked if I wanted to write a blog post based on a Tweet I’d made. Thanks to that person’s sponsorship (Thanks, Avi!), my blog “A CV of Failures” now lives in the Women in Medicine book “An Evolution of Empowerment” that was published this Fall.
During 2022, I responded to a request on Twitter for personal essays on wellbeing to be published in the book “The Essential Guide to Healthcare Professional Wellness.” My essay, “A Different Kind of Hero” reflects the frustration that I (and many others in healthcare) have felt about being called superheroes. Part of that frustration is what fueled this Substack, a place for people to come to acknowledge their humanity, not a fake version of themselves pretending to be perfect.
On that note, my 2023 creativity round-up would be incomplete without mentioning this labor of love, Humans Leading!
Since April, I’ve published 28 posts, and 119 of you have signed up to have this delivered to your email box each time one comes out. This still blows my mind a little bit. It’s not a “big number” like many of the newsletters I subscribe to. But, for someone who just started writing for real this year, it’s 118 more people than I thought it might be (obviously my mom was going to).
My most popular posts this year have been:
I’m looking forward to seeing where 2024 takes me on Substack and beyond. I hope you’ll join me.
ALSO…
Something exciting is coming in January 2024 related to the Media and Medicine Project I did earlier this year. Stay tuned.
Congratulations my friend! Amazing year for you. I am exciting for 2024 for you and continuing to read your posts and amazing insights!
I've really enjoyed your newsletter and am looking forward to 2024 with you. The medicine and media project sounds amazing-can't wait to hear more.