Case Study: Robert

Robert, a suburban practice principal, enjoyed his work and had no thoughts of

retirement; work was an absolute central life interest, and he would continue to work even if he did not need the money. He expressed some vague plans that he and his wife, a nurse, would like to travel to regional areas of Australia doing locum work in the future. He explained:

I want to keep working as long as I can, I don’t necessarily have a huge desire to retire at 55 years and one day. One of my (business) partners, actually quite staggered me the other day at a meeting when he said that if he won Tattslotto tomorrow he wouldn’t be in to work the next day and I turned around and said “why wouldn’t you want to come to work the next day?” and it never actually occurred to me that someone would actually not enjoy their job enough to not want to go to work.

Robert’s wife organised their holidays, as without a break from his work routine he became “really tired and cranky and irritable”. They took a holiday break away from Melbourne several times a year, typically at four month intervals. Robert considered it necessary to take holidays in places with geographical distance from work and home, because he integrated his work and home spheres and needed to “get away”. The

geographical distance from work and home facilitated his psychological detachment from work, and this complemented the recovery of resources gained during his holidays.

Robert also allocated time during the week for brief respites. He played tennis one evening a week, and this was a priority activity for him. He was also a football enthusiast, and liked to go to matches with his wife. He used these activities as brief respites that allowed him to temporarily take time out from the demands of general practice.

Robert’s respite activities appeared to be successful. He acknowledged there were some aspects of general practice where he experienced a little dissatisfaction and

frustration, for example, the business side of general practice. However, he considered the majority of his job experiences were intrinsically fulfilling, and he derived satisfaction and rewards from his work. Robert received satisfaction and enjoyment from the longitudinal relationships he had with his patients. He found the content of his work challenging, and this gave him the opportunity to use his GP skills.

Money was important to Robert to ensure he could educate his children, and meet his family and lifestyle needs and wants. He did not directly complain about lack of financial reward, but did suggest that the number of hours he worked in order to generate his income was excessive.

Robert enjoyed being a doctor. He was committed and involved in being a GP. This was demonstrated by his availability to his patients, and the variety of activities he was

involved in that were associated with medicine, and contributed to his ongoing professional development.

Robert did not maintain boundaries between work and non-work/family spheres. He spent 65 hours per week on work related activities, and chose to integrate the spheres of his life. Robert conducted business related activities at home; his home phone number was listed in the telephone book, and patients often phoned him at home. He explained:

I’ve worked the last six days. Today (Sunday) I’ve got a day off. I’ve had a couple of phone calls (from patients) this morning, that’s not a problem but they’re not really days off. I’d like to be able to have an afternoon off. I think the hours that I work are probably ridiculous.

The way Robert integrated his work into his time at home was similar to the stereotypical image of the family doctor from the past. This image is a culturally

conditioned normative belief about the role of a general practitioner that is changing for some younger GPs, as identified by Natasha, in section 6.5. In the past, GPs expected to be on call 24 hours; often the doctor’s residence and practice were combined in the same premises, so there were no geographical boundaries between his work and non-work domains. Although Robert lived in a different suburb from his practice, by providing his home telephone number, and being available to his patients in non-work time, he was adopting a modern day approach to not having geographical boundaries between

domains. He did not consider this to be an unreasonable intrusion into his home/non-work domain. Robert’s wife however, resented the intrusion, and his lack of accessibility, and participation in family activities. Robert minimised his family obligations and this provided him with sufficient time, and opportunities, to engage in respite activities that allowed him to recover from his work efforts. The ongoing emphasis on work at the expense of minimal family participation had potential to ultimately negatively affect the family.