Overall I have enjoyed a fantastic life. I have a wonderful family, I enjoy my work, and, save for a few bumps in the road, I enjoy excellent health. This past July, however, was not my best month. Nothing terrible happened. It was more of a collection of events that made me experience a torrent of negative feelings.

It all started with a driving mishap. In the past year my wife backed into a car in our driveway, and my daughter turned too sharply backing out of the garage and scraped the fender. Both events caused visits to my now good buddy, Jesse, at the local body shop. Neither episode was upsetting to me. This was not the case when I was the one to back into the kids’ car in the driveway damaging not one, but two, fenders. I was so mad at myself I could hardly see straight. I was inconsolable. If I’d had a fever, you would have done an LP on me. Eventually I got over it.

I had been working more and sleeping less than I usually prefer. This translated into a general grumpy attitude around home and around the ED. The nurses even complained. There were no outbursts or arguments, just a less than stellar attitude. This made me feel bad because I strive to be even tempered.

Finally, late in the month, I missed a diagnosis that I should have made. It was a busy day, I was trying to move things along, and I just missed it. Nothing bad came of it, but I was not pleased with myself.

By the end of the month, my self-image was suffering, and I was tiring of being with myself. Luckily, I had a week off coming and had signed up for the Michigan College of Emergency Physicians summer conference on Mackinac Island. A few months earlier my wife had shown me the brochure and wondered if the lineup of speakers interested me. It looked promising, so I signed up.

After finishing a day shift I put the bikes on the back of the car, and we traveled to northern Michigan. We stayed overnight in Cheboygan. I wanted to stay there because I enjoy saying Cheboygan. Go ahead, say it. Also, we wanted to visit a nearby winery, which we never found. The next day we made the scenic trip up the coast of Lake Huron to Mackinac City. This gateway to the Mackinac Bridge is loaded with interesting shops and has a Coast Guard vessel to tour.

We found a wine tasting shop for an Upper Peninsula winery, sampled some excellent wines, and bought some to take home. Other than riding snowmobiles and hunting moose, I imagine that beer and wine consumption is a common wintertime activity in the U.P. [Michigan’s Upper Peninsula].

There is ferry service to Mackinac Island from either Mackinac City or St. Ignace, which is on the other end of the five-mile suspension bridge to the U.P. I wanted to cross the Straights of Mackinac for the experience and also to say that I had been to the U.P., so we ventured to St. Ignace. We made the quick ferry trip to the island and then rode our bikes to Grand Hotel. Unless one goes by horse-drawn carriage or walks, a bike is needed to get around the island. No cars are allowed.

It is amazing how quiet a place can be when no cars are present. Clip clopping of hooves is about all we heard on our ride to the largest summertime hotel in the world. Staying there, while expensive, was alone worth the trip. The service and the food were unmatched, and the 19th- century ambience made for a unique experience. Mackinac is one of those places that is uniquely American, like New York, New Orleans, or San Francisco. I felt a sense of history and gentleness that I have not found at other destinations.

The lectures usually finished at lunchtime, and my wife and I spent afternoons touring the island on our bikes. Most of the island is state park with dense forest and stunning rock formations. On rides to the steep and secluded interior of the island, if we stopped, the only sound we could hear was our own hearts beating.

They have been doing it for 40 years, and MCEP put on a superb event. The speakers at the conference were all top shelf, and I took home useful information to improve my practice. More important, I took with me a reminder of why we do what we do and how important it is to sharpen the saw. Going to a conference is not a luxury or an extravagance. Sure, you can read this stuff, but you can’t interact with other emergency physicians and learn from experts who gather important concepts in a format that brings clarity to murky issues.

Meetings such as this are an important part of personal and professional development. They are good for us and good for our patients.

By the second day of biking, negative thoughts escaped to the depths of Lake Huron, and I regained proper perspective on life and on medicine. I learned again that pessimistic thoughts are the enemy of empathy and sound thinking. Our personal happiness is multiplied through every human encounter, and through it we wield more power than the most malicious pen or the sharpest sword.

Be happy.

Dr. Baehren lives in Ottawa Hills, Ohio. He practices emergency medicine at Wood County Hospital. Your feedback is welcome at DBaehren@premierdocs.com.