I have been nourished by cafeteria food since elementary school. I remember the public school pizza squares with its melted artificial cheese, the fruit cocktail drenched in sickeningly sweet syrup, and 2 percent chocolate milk pints—costing $1.65 per meal. In college, I enjoyed access to a wider selection, including $6.50 custom omelets and midnight mozzarella sticks to fuel late-night study sessions. However, nothing came close to the quality and …
An excerpt from This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More.
Suzy was a bright and hardworking student. However, even though she was conscientious and generally cheery, her grades began to fall during …
I love being an emergency doctor. I loved my residency, my co-residents, and my attendings.
I love my training: watching, learning, treating.
I love the emergency department, the vastness, and the variability of emergency medicine.
But I am tired.
I am tired of feeling like a workhorse, a production line made to just churn patients in and out.
I am tired of being told that my worth as a doctor is based on my time …
“We are blessed to work in a clinic that has a very large immigrant population. Over the years, we have cared for those who speak over 80+ languages with an even higher number of unique countries and regions represented. Arabic and Spanish are our two most commonly spoken non-English languages. We also have patients who speak unique languages such as Kurdish, …
President Trump recently signed two executive orders directly related to prescription drug prices in the U.S.
One order would allow the “reimportation” of prescription drugs from Canada. This longstanding idea would allow U.S. pharmacies and drug wholesalers the ability to pay generally much lower prices for their prescription drugs by getting them from Canadian suppliers who benefit from government management of the system. Many consumers have been buying direct from Canadian …
Human kindness is a trait that, though inherent within our genetic make-up, can also be a learned behavior.
The absence of human kindness is blatantly visible to others when a lack of compassion and/or empathy permeates within an interaction with another human being.
As our daily life responsibilities continue at a steady state: mundane things such as paying bills, holding down a job and successfully interacting with co-workers, our ability to respond …
“Building great tech for doctors is no different from ventilator technology. In some scenarios, you will want to talk to the EMR like you talk to Siri, rather than poring over a screen littered with boxes and lists. In other cases, you will want elegant graphs intuitively laid out to show how your ICU patient is progressing. Other solutions will go …
The behavior of managers and supervisors in organizations affects the mental health of their employees. This is especially true during times of uncertainty, such as a global pandemic.
Does a leader’s health and well-being change how they lead?
Early evidence shows that when leaders are experiencing challenging conditions, they are more likely to become resource depleted and exhibit negative behaviors, such as passive leadership or abusive …
“We all knew this pandemic was going to change how we practiced medicine, but I, personally, was not prepared for how much it would challenge the ‘work-life balance’ that I have spent years carefully maneuvering. Female physicians are often hesitant to express individual needs for fear of being viewed as “weak.” I’m finding freedom in removing the stigma of weakness and …
“COVID-19 has given all of us the opportunity to live in extremely challenging times. We can choose to run away from this challenge or decide to acknowledge it as part of our journey to grow and transform. So, will you face your habitual reactions, biases, and unpleasant emotions and turn these COVID-19 related challenges into opportunities for personal development and growth?
It’s …
What does a primary care visit look like from the patient’s point of view? I often wonder this myself, as a resident physician currently seeing patients at an FQHC in Austin, Texas. A brief look at the process reveals an often tumultuous ordeal for patients and providers alike. Consider the following steps: Finding an available appointment day and time in an overbooked schedule, requesting time off from work in order …
When I was a full-time partner in a large radiology practice, I worked days, nights, evenings, and weekends without control over my schedule. Doing the laundry, I washed days’ worth of my children’s outfits that I never saw them wear. I saw them in PJs in the morning before I left for work, kissed their warm cheeks goodbye, and saw them again at night when I got home after dinnertime …
An excerpt from Scope Forward: The Future of Gastroenterology Is Now in Your Hands.
Over a decade ago, many of us still used landline phones, watched cable TV, rented DVDs, called for taxis, took photos using cameras, and drove over to Borders to browse and buy books. …
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“I know I am not alone in my thoughts; I am just echoing sentiments of other female physicians. We are mothers, wives, patient advocates, and educators. And we’re all suddenly finding ourselves in unchartered waters. In weathering this pandemic, I’ve taken time to reflect. I wish I could say I emerged from this introspection having conquered all my fears. Instead, I …
Today I wanted to talk about a concept that is very near and dear to my heart: Holding space.
Have you ever heard of it? Do you know how to describe it?
I will first start with the definition and then give you an example.
Holding space means being physically, mentally, and emotionally present for someone. It means putting your focus on someone to support them as they feel their feelings. An important …
“Through my coaching of girl’s basketball in California’s Central Valley, my daughter and I were fortunate enough to know Kobe as a mentor and coach, and a person who inspired my daughter to be the best through hard work, dedication, and passion. While Kobe will live on as one of the game’s greatest athletes, he wanted to be remembered for much …
“It is time to stop being spectators. We are at a critical turning point in our fight against this disease, and our actions now will determine whether we stay on the sidelines, or put an effective end to the scourge of the disease. If we want to avoid a deadlier and costlier battle for the years to come, students, and the …
“We need to stay healthy for our patients, but also for ourselves and our families. We need to mobilize the faction not just with regard to this pandemic, but by anticipating the arrival of others. So how do we advocate for ourselves? A great way to start is continuing our conversations amongst our colleagues and sharing experiences, looking to local businesses …
During my first year of medical school, a professor in my clinical skills course shared a timeless adage in medicine: “If you listen closely enough to the patient, they will tell you the diagnosis.” I accepted this statement as a fact of medicine – if I could develop astute history taking skills in my first year, this skill would serve me well throughout my medical training. However, when I volunteered …
“We are transitioning.” In July of my intern year, this was the sentence that the CEO of our community hospital used to tell the staff that the hospital was closing its inpatient services. The emotions that traversed my mind were quite vast, to say the least. Anger was undeniably at the top of the list, but mostly directed at myself.
Initially, I thought medical school definitely did not prepare me for this. …
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