Mental health policy has gained increasingly earned attention in the last decade, and policy solutions are needed now more than ever. According to the 2016 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, the United States has the second-highest rate of self-reported…
Mental health policy has gained increasingly earned attention in the last decade, and policy solutions are needed now more than ever. According to the 2016 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, the United States has the second-highest rate of self-reported emotional distress among high-income nations. Among high-earning adults in these countries, those in the U.S. were the most likely to have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or other mental health …
My wife worked as a retail store manager for twelve years. We often joked that her customers were one psychiatric hospitalization away from turning into my patients. As my career progressed, our jokes became a disappointing reality. My meetings with…
My wife worked as a retail store manager for twelve years. We often joked that her customers were one psychiatric hospitalization away from turning into my patients. As my career progressed, our jokes became a disappointing reality. My meetings with insurance reviewers, outpatient clinics, and even hospital administrators referenced “consumers” and “clients.” The issue with the use of the term “provider” becomes more important if our patients are seen as …
Picture two patients seated in the same waiting room, hearing the same diagnosis from the same physician on the same day. From that moment, their lives diverge, each setting out on a journey shaped by individual choices, relationships, and ways…
Picture two patients seated in the same waiting room, hearing the same diagnosis from the same physician on the same day. From that moment, their lives diverge, each setting out on a journey shaped by individual choices, relationships, and ways of coping.
For one patient, the diagnosis becomes a consuming shadow. Every ache signals a smaller world. Fear and anger begin to strain relationships that were once strong. Work no longer …
In 2020, during a period of severe insomnia, I took one drop of CBD oil hoping it would help me sleep. At the time, CBD was described everywhere as natural, gentle, and safe. I had read stories about people using…
In 2020, during a period of severe insomnia, I took one drop of CBD oil hoping it would help me sleep. At the time, CBD was described everywhere as natural, gentle, and safe. I had read stories about people using it for sleep, anxiety, and pain. I was desperate for rest, but I was also cautious. I did not take a large dose. I took one drop.
At two in the morning, grief looked like psychosis. I remember being irritated before I even saw her. At the time, I was working back home in Malaysia. The emergency department fluorescent lights were too bright, my head heavy with…
At two in the morning, grief looked like psychosis.
I remember being irritated before I even saw her. At the time, I was working back home in Malaysia. The emergency department fluorescent lights were too bright, my head heavy with interrupted sleep, the air-conditioning turned low enough that the corridors felt vaguely refrigerated. Someone from the emergency department had telephoned psychiatry on call (me) requesting an urgent review of an elderly …
On June 29, 2026, psychologist Adam Omary published a landmark observation in the Boston Globe, titled "The disability accommodation trap on college campuses." As he observed: "It was well-intentioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended in 2008 to…
On June 29, 2026, psychologist Adam Omary published a landmark observation in the Boston Globe, titled “The disability accommodation trap on college campuses.” As he observed:
“It was well-intentioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended in 2008 to include mental health conditions and learning disabilities as eligible for accommodations. But in practice, it created incentives for overdiagnosis. As The Harvard Crimson reported in December, the share of …
Health care professionals are trained to diagnose, decide, and act under pressure. Yet one of the most important factors influencing clinical judgment, patient trust, and resilience is often overlooked: emotional self-regulation. Emotional regulation is not just a personal wellness practice…
Health care professionals are trained to diagnose, decide, and act under pressure. Yet one of the most important factors influencing clinical judgment, patient trust, and resilience is often overlooked: emotional self-regulation.
Emotional regulation is not just a personal wellness practice that clinicians might pursue outside work to reduce stress or improve work-life balance. Today, it is increasingly being recognized as an essential clinical competency to practice, to reset, and to renew …
Every year, my desk fills with increasingly complex paperwork. School systems, testing boards, and corporate human resources departments request formal validation to grant specific accommodations, most commonly extended time or modified environments, for individuals diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.…
Every year, my desk fills with increasingly complex paperwork. School systems, testing boards, and corporate human resources departments request formal validation to grant specific accommodations, most commonly extended time or modified environments, for individuals diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As a psychiatrist who has spent decades observing the human condition, I find myself increasingly reluctant to sign these forms.
This hesitation does not stem from skepticism about the condition itself. …
A week off does not fix burnout. The same problems are waiting when you get home, and the same person is walking back into them. Stacey Funt is a radiologist who runs a boutique wellness adventure travel company, mostly for…
A week off does not fix burnout. The same problems are waiting when you get home, and the same person is walking back into them. Stacey Funt is a radiologist who runs a boutique wellness adventure travel company, mostly for women in their 40s through 60s, including a high share of physicians. She discusses the KevinMD article “Why immersive …
The longer I've practiced medicine, the more uncomfortable I've grown with the word resilience. I'm a physician, and I am also a person in long-term recovery from addiction. Both of those identities have shaped everything about how I move through…
The longer I’ve practiced medicine, the more uncomfortable I’ve grown with the word resilience.
I’m a physician, and I am also a person in long-term recovery from addiction. Both of those identities have shaped everything about how I move through health care, and nowhere do they collide more sharply than in the culture of resilience that medicine holds so dear. We praise it like a virtue. We stitch it into wellness …
There's a quiet assumption baked into how most physicians think about their careers: If you have the capacity to earn a certain income, you should. More RVUs, more shifts, more call. The math always seems to point in one direction.…
There’s a quiet assumption baked into how most physicians think about their careers: If you have the capacity to earn a certain income, you should. More RVUs, more shifts, more call. The math always seems to point in one direction.
I want to question that assumption, because I’m watching it cost the doctors I coach something they can’t get back. When physicians come to me feeling depleted, the first instinct, theirs …
When the pattern became impossible to ignore A patient came into the office after two or three days of cough, congestion, body aches, and fatigue. Fairly typical upper respiratory symptoms. I offered to test him for COVID. He scoffed and…
When the pattern became impossible to ignore
A patient came into the office after two or three days of cough, congestion, body aches, and fatigue. Fairly typical upper respiratory symptoms. I offered to test him for COVID. He scoffed and dismissively declined any viral testing.
Apparently he already “knew” what this was. According to him, it was “turning into bronchitis,” and what he “needed” was a Z-pack. I explained that after only …
Medical regulatory agencies play a foundational role in protecting patients and maintaining high professional standards. When rules are applied clearly, consistently, and supportively, they create space for physicians to deliver excellent care while sustaining their own well-being. Yet administrative burdens…
Medical regulatory agencies play a foundational role in protecting patients and maintaining high professional standards. When rules are applied clearly, consistently, and supportively, they create space for physicians to deliver excellent care while sustaining their own well-being. Yet administrative burdens and process complexities often contribute to stress. A promising solution lies in blending traditional oversight with restorative justice principles and a holistic health lens, approaches that address the whole person …
When a child is diagnosed with ADHD, the conversation is often much narrower. Medication. Maybe a school form. Maybe a vague suggestion to "try therapy." Then parents are sent back into the same exhausted home, the same chaotic mornings, the…
When a child is diagnosed with ADHD, the conversation is often much narrower. Medication. Maybe a school form. Maybe a vague suggestion to “try therapy.” Then parents are sent back into the same exhausted home, the same chaotic mornings, the same homework battles, the same social struggles, the same emotional explosions, and the same school system that often does not know what to do with a child who is bright, …
A young Black woman waits in a psychiatric emergency room. She is grieving, traumatized, and depressed. The clinician, however, describes her as "guarded," "hostile," and "paranoid" in the chart. She leaves with a schizophrenia diagnosis, a prescription for a first-generation…
A young Black woman waits in a psychiatric emergency room. She is grieving, traumatized, and depressed. The clinician, however, describes her as “guarded,” “hostile,” and “paranoid” in the chart. She leaves with a schizophrenia diagnosis, a prescription for a first-generation antipsychotic, and a future shaped by a label she should never have received.
This is not a hypothetical situation. The Harvard Review of Psychiatry documented this case in 2023. She was …
For many people, mornings no longer begin gently. The day now arrives all at once: emails, headlines, notifications, unanswered messages, schedules, worries, reminders, and the quiet pressure to immediately become productive. Before the body has fully awakened, the mind has…
For many people, mornings no longer begin gently. The day now arrives all at once: emails, headlines, notifications, unanswered messages, schedules, worries, reminders, and the quiet pressure to immediately become productive. Before the body has fully awakened, the mind has already entered a state of vigilance.
Increasingly, I meet patients who describe feeling exhausted before the day has meaningfully begun. Not necessarily in the dramatic language of burnout or acute crisis, …
Adult ADHD is real. It is impairing. It is often missed, especially in bright, high-achieving adults, women, and people who learned to compensate for years before finally burning out. But the solution to underdiagnosis cannot be overdiagnosis. We are now…
Adult ADHD is real. It is impairing. It is often missed, especially in bright, high-achieving adults, women, and people who learned to compensate for years before finally burning out. But the solution to underdiagnosis cannot be overdiagnosis.
We are now seeing a second problem emerge: rushed adult ADHD evaluations, often completed in 30 to 60 minutes, sometimes based heavily on a brief questionnaire, followed quickly by stimulant prescribing. The patient …
We tell burned-out physicians to practice self-care, set boundaries, build resilience. And still, women are leaving medicine earlier and at higher rates than men, taking with them decades of clinical expertise and leaving behind a replacement cost that runs into…
We tell burned-out physicians to practice self-care, set boundaries, build resilience. And still, women are leaving medicine earlier and at higher rates than men, taking with them decades of clinical expertise and leaving behind a replacement cost that runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per physician. We’ve named burnout as the problem, but haven’t addressed an important driving factor. The missing piece isn’t a wellness app or a …
Every week, a familiar reflection settles into the corners of my mind as I look at my office desk. As a practicing psychiatrist, my days are spent navigating a gentle but persistent paradox. On one hand, my workspace is increasingly…
Every week, a familiar reflection settles into the corners of my mind as I look at my office desk. As a practicing psychiatrist, my days are spent navigating a gentle but persistent paradox. On one hand, my workspace is increasingly filled with paperwork: diagnostic standardizations, complex neuropsychological testing matrices, and formal institutional accommodation forms designed to categorize human behavior into neat, permanent columns. On the other hand, sitting across from …
The first law: Nothing is lost "I used to be smart, now I can't think. I used to solve puzzles pretty easily, but now I don't have any logic whatsoever. Sometimes I don't even remember the days I had a…
The first law: Nothing is lost
“I used to be smart, now I can’t think. I used to solve puzzles pretty easily, but now I don’t have any logic whatsoever. Sometimes I don’t even remember the days I had a week ago. I don’t know why my brain doesn’t work anymore.”
I kept seeing the same grief in different words: people who were not simply sad, but bewildered by the disappearance of …
