Tracy Asamoah is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and can be reached at Tracy Asamoah Coaching.

How shame tried to hijack my medical training

Physician
April 24, 2021

Can you remember a situation when shame showed up and tried to take over? Shame is like that opinionated, argumentative uncle who you only see at family dinners on holidays. His mission to seek and destroy any vulnerable, unsuspecting targets. For me, shame showed up as an uninvited narrator on my first call night, as a brand spanking new, doe-eyed intern.

As interns, we took call with our senior residents admitting …

Read more…

How shame tried to hijack my medical training

It’s time to focus medical education on training the whole person

Medical Education
January 23, 2021

Here I am, 17 years out of my fellowship training, and I’m just getting some of the most important training of my medical career.

I continue to believe that my medical school, residency, and fellowship training were all outstanding. However, either I missed something in the course catalogue, or like for most medical students, residents, and fellows, there were some glaring omissions in the course offerings.

Here are some of the courses …

Read more…

It’s time to focus medical education on training the whole person

A child psychiatrist’s tips for digital parenting during COVID

Conditions and Diseases
May 24, 2020

Recently, I was part of a virtual panel discussing ways to help kids and teens manage their digital technology use. The audience, parents from around the world, felt blind-sided about how all of this extra time at home has led to significant increases in screen use for most people.

On top of everything else, this pandemic has dumped on our personal and professional lives as physicians, many of us are also …

Read more…

A child psychiatrist’s tips for digital parenting during COVID

Health care workers: What do you need?

Conditions and Diseases
April 28, 2020

What do you need? What do you need right now, and what will you need days, weeks, months from now?

Do you need PPE or time off? Do you need hand sanitizer or disinfectant wipes? How about testing kits? Swabs? Do you need help keeping your practice afloat or managing a pay cut?  Do you need your organization to acknowledge your struggles and make changes to prioritize the health and well-being …

Read more…

Health care workers: What do you need?

Core values were key to reclaiming my physician identity

Physician
February 28, 2020

My identity crisis attempted its first appearance five years ago. I had decided to leave my job as a psychiatrist in an outpatient, community-based practice. My professional role had become incongruent with the doctor I had envisioned becoming. In my misalignment, I had lost clarity in my identity as a physician. I was frustrated and felt ineffective and disconnected from my work.

I suspected that some of my colleagues were struggling …

Read more…

Core values were key to reclaiming my physician identity

A letter from a parent to her child’s pediatrician

Physician
August 21, 2017

I am a child psychiatrist who is also a patient, a mother of patients and the wife of a patient. I have lived all sides of health care and appreciate the complexity that is our American health care system. After a recent move to a different part of town, we decided to find a new pediatrician for our daughters.

I knew that we had several good options near our home. When …

Read more…

A letter from a parent to her child’s pediatrician

Caring for employees is the right thing to do

Physician
June 13, 2017

I am not an employee. Maybe I should have said this four years ago when I was an employee. When I opened my private practice in 2014, I was running away from something as much as I was running to something new. I’ve been out of training for over a decade. Early in my career, I envisioned myself as an employee of either a non-profit organization working with underserved communities …

Read more…

Caring for employees is the right thing to do

What a psychiatrist learned when she tried to connect with her colleagues

Physician
January 21, 2017

Over the past couple of months, I have had the privilege of meeting with several colleagues in my community. When I contacted them, I offered to bring them lunch if they would give me a few minutes to share an idea about a project that I am really excited about. However, what I really wanted was a chance to engage with physicians who I knew little more than their name …

Read more…

What a psychiatrist learned when she tried to connect with her colleagues

How do we deal with change in medicine?

Physician
November 22, 2016

Early in my career, I learned that keeping my focus on patients would help me define the physician I wanted to be. One of my first offices was in a cell of a repurposed juvenile detention unit with cinder block walls painted pasty white. Occasionally, I had to apologize to my patients as I explained that the smell was sewage from the toilets backing up. In that cold, harsh room, …

Read more…

How do we deal with change in medicine?

A physician quits and practices medicine her way

Physician
October 24, 2016

I answer every phone call from every patient myself. I have no staff to respond to issues that come up during the day. There are no colleagues that take my calls after hours. This was my choice in response to what everyone knows: Health care is broken.  I needed a radical change from the bureaucratic system that I experienced daily as a physician however I had no idea how to …

Read more…

A physician quits and practices medicine her way