At the very start of the pandemic last year, I met with a couple of patients in the office while we wore masks. Based on that limited experience, I quickly concluded that seeing each other’s faces was of paramount importance, even if over video. That, plus the infection risk, led me to close my office to in-person appointments. For more than a year, I exclusively conducted …
Recently, one of my coaching clients came to our Zoom session looking exhausted. I wasn’t surprised. She’s a physician, a leader at her hospital, and the past two years have been a lot for her. COVID takes its toll in many ways, and it has changed her forever. But this day her biggest challenge was something a little bit different. She was tired of cameras.
“I’m seeing so many patients through …
An excerpt from The Empathy Effect: Seven Neuroscience-Based Keys for Transforming the Way We Live, Love, Work, and Connect Across Differences.
“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”
What picture do you see when you read this quote from Mother Theresa? Do you see an orphaned child living in poverty? Or, maybe a homeless person begging on …
Studies reveal that more than half of all practicing physicians demonstrate signs of burnout. Contemporary physicians face tremendous pressures due to a confluence of factors, including balancing heavy patient loads within constrained schedules, the increasing complexity of patient health problems, and increasingly burdensome COVID-related documentation requirements.
These circumstances—and more—challenge physician empathy, and even to some extent dampen it even further. Multiple research studies document a decline in empathy that appears to …
An excerpt from The Addicted Child: A Parent’s Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.
How do you know if your teen has a substance problem? The inability to control substance use despite negative consequences is a classic definition of a severe substance use disorder. But substances aren’t the only thing afflicting adolescents. Another dangerous behavior is invading the adolescent population: process disorders. …
Mary (identifying information changed) was extremely pleasant, to say the least.
By the time I met her on the senior unit, she had seemingly befriended even the orneriest of our geriatric patients. She wandered and danced about the unit, speaking with each fellow patient she encountered in a style one nurse called “cheerfully mad.”
Her strategy, maximalist and crude but stunningly effective, was to talk your ear off in a joyful stream …
Thanks for gathering today in this anonymous detached space. Since it’s unlikely that we’ll ever publicly convene in a circle on metal folding chairs, I’m reaching out through this letter. You can peruse this in private and perhaps see a piece of yourself here.
As a non-practicing physician who speaks openly about my decades of suicidal ideations, I know there’s a thirst for connection on this topic. Colleagues pull me aside …
An excerpt from Physician Betrayal: How Our Heroes Become Villains.
A mass casualty event begins with one act of betrayal. By one person. A person with power. In medicine the assault weapon—doctor’s orders.
One act of betrayal by one doctor may lead to an unstoppable cascade befalling all colleagues downstream in rapid succession.
Physician betrayal always begins with self-betrayal—the act of …
I went to replace four hanging plants at a nursery this past weekend because they all died once the Texas heat made its appearance, despite being watered, placed in the shade, and talked to by my daughter and me.
While I was looking for plants that will hopefully survive the Texas summer, I was chatting with my husband, who cheekily said, “Those plants weren’t resilient.”
He, of course, knows my disdain for …
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred an avalanche of mental health issues that have continued to plague the general public over the last 18 months – with the full impact from lingering quarantines, prolonged social distancing, and now the fear over the unknowns of new variants. In fact, nearly 70 percent of working adults say this has been the most stressful time period of their lives.
Fortunately, along with the unprecedented surge …
The problem with feeling like an imposter is thinking there’s something wrong with it.
I know this is different from any way you have thought about it, but humor me. What happens when we are offered an opportunity but we feel like an imposter?
We hide.
We overwork to compensate.
We look around at our colleagues and resent them. Because why do they get to feel so secure? Why aren’t they feeling insecure? They …
I apologize in advance if the following lines sound full of frustration, disappointment, or anger. That is not my nature. I am optimistic; I like to see the light at the end of the tunnel and believe that goodness exists. But, after reading the news this past week, I don’t feel positive. I feel dismayed and heartbroken. I just continue asking myself: Where are the leaders?
Going to medical school and …
Last year, a physician friend began experiencing what she believed was burnout. She felt constantly overwhelmed, had difficulty sleeping and eating, and began to dread going into her office. She worried excessively about patient outcomes, decisions she had made, and whether she was actually a good doctor. She even began to cry unpredictably. Like so many physicians who struggle with these kinds of symptoms, she avoided seeking help until she …
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In a world full of white coats, wear a leotard.
The news of Simone Biles’s recent withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympic Games shocked the world. What was surprising to many was the reason—not a physical injury, but a commitment to prioritizing her mental health. Biles later revealed that she had been experiencing a case of the “twisties.”
So, what are the twisties?
Twisties is a term that refers to a mental block or …
I cannot accept that others have control of how I feel, act and think. I admit it’s easier to blame others — the disrupted system, the incompetent “leaders,” the unhealthy environment and the micro-aggressive behaviors. But I refuse to give that power to others! I’m the owner of my goals, thoughts, feelings and actions. And I refuse to burn out!
Burnout
Dr. Freudenberger first coined the term in 1974 to define …
When the greatest-of-all-time gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from the Olympics to focus on her mental wellbeing, most observers applauded her decision, viewing it as an act of courage and bravery, an eye-opener for breaking the stigma around mental health. Many felt it was a positive step (no pun intended) because it reignited conversations about elite athletes and other high-stress professionals and their ability to perform under psychological adversity. However, does the …
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“Embrace dialectical thinking, stupid!”
That’s the mantra I repeat when I catch myself getting worked up about a deep-seated belief, idea, or cause. Understanding the flip side of the equation helps me to neutralize powerful negative feelings like righteous indignation, bitter disappointment, and utter disgust with the incompetence of fill-in-the-blank.
Dialectical thinking is the ability to view an issue from multiple perspectives. Embracing it helps us recognize that it’s almost always possible …
I am sitting in hot springs deep in the dark and crisp air woods – naked. It has been a day of lectures and workshops at a retreat with my fellow physicians. We are all naked in the effervescent, warm bubbles of the springs. In the dark, I can recognize who people are by the fluorescent necklace each wears. You know, the kind that you crunch and shake to activate …
Value-based care (VBC) continues to be a popular expression across the health care landscape, but the challenges and opportunities it offers are quite different across specialties. Behavioral health (BH) providers are an important case in point. The opioid epidemic combined with increased recognition and prevalence of mental illness secondary to the pandemic has brought behavioral health to the forefront, but for BH providers, the transition to VBC continues to present …
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I am a first-generation Chinese American. And amidst the complexity of the pieces that form my identity (mom, wife, daughter, woman, doctor), it is the piece I have often prized the least.
In one of my earliest memories, I am riding a crowded bus in Beijing. My aunt and cousin are pointing out the American tourists as we pass, commenting on their high nose bridges and round eyes and how these …
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