“Doctor, why don’t you remember when I was last hospitalized? I told you about that two months ago. You obviously don’t care if you can’t remember. Is all of psychiatry like this? Maybe I need to see someone else. Why won’t you prescribe Ambien for my insomnia during pregnancy along with all the other medications I am on? My last doctor had no problem giving me Ambien during pregnancy.”
This was …
I love generic brand products. I will fight to the last breath for my Shoppers’ Choice Adhesive Bandages rather than pay an extra $0.49 for Band-Aids. So why, then, have I been paying up to $395 every month for brand-name medication for the last two years instead of getting the generic version for $7.56? After all, aren’t generic drugs the same as their brand-name counterparts?
Let’s go back to November 2019, …
Concerns about the generic formulations of ADHD medications
An excerpt from The Empathy Academy.
It might be tempting to choose an easier path, Monty thought, but amid the stress, pain, and tragedy, there were also triumphs: A patient’s seizures stop. A CT scan is clear. He remembered resuscitating Mrs. Caldwell and feeling a wave of relief upon …
Human beings are more than their genes
While the mental illness patient is afflicted by very real and painful feelings, these feelings are internal and not visible to others. The indications of the condition then, whether those of depression, anxiety, or even hallucinations, can be said to be invisible to observers — family, doctor, etc. — in fact, to everyone other than that individual sufferer of mental illness.
A constellation of signs and symptoms is often used to …
The invisibility of mental illness
The medical establishment has made wonderful strides in destigmatizing psychiatric disorders. However, we have helped to create a devastating stigmatization of emotional distress. Somehow, as it has become acceptable to suffer from a psychiatric illness, it has become increasingly unacceptable to suffer from emotional distress and the current medical practice has nurtured this change.
We have simply and overwhelmingly lost touch with the human aspect of medicine. When someone is in …
We have overwhelmingly lost touch with the human aspect of medicine
Until recently, I have remained relatively silent in the realm of eating disorder advocacy and silenced by the exhaustion of my own lived experience with an eating disorder. However, my silence further contributed to the pain. So now, I speak. And as I speak, I will reflect on the issues that led to my former silence and why we must use our voices.
The need for this work was validated during …
Why it’s time to use our voices
We are nurses. We are in highly dangerous and volatile units at hospitals. We are not working in a prison. We work in behavioral health. The intensive management unit, the adolescent unit, the dual-diagnosis unit, and the behavioral health emergency department.
We are specially trained to protect ourselves and others with CPI — a mandatory nonviolent crisis intervention training. We have patients who are schizophrenic, bipolar, drug addicts, with assault charges, …
We are behavioral health nurses and we want to thank our public safety officers (PSOs)
I almost quit my job in 2014. I didn’t like my life, and I didn’t like myself. I had a lot of problems personally and professionally, and I wondered if I was good enough to solve them. I often felt weak and powerless. People were coming to me for answers, but I sometimes felt like a fraud.
My usual strategies of working harder and reading more books weren’t helping me, and …
A burnout coach saved my medical career — and possibly my life
My interest in the topic of physician wellness dates to my residency. We were required to do a project, and I opted to survey my colleagues about their health habits and concerns. I was not surprised to find that residents were unable to commit to the health recommendations we give our patients. For example, only 25 percent of respondents met the American Heart Association recommendations for physical activity. Access to …
Organizational approaches to address burnout and moral distress
On February 22nd, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas turned essential medical treatments for transgender adolescents into a crime, ordering the state to investigate them as “child abuse.”
The following day, a patient came to one of us (Dr. Morse), and through sobs recounted the gender identity-related maltreatment that she had experienced throughout her youth. She had survived bullying at school, transphobic slurs in the streets, and multiple threats of physical assault. …
Governor Abbott’s decree: medically harmful, scientifically unfounded, and unethical
This article may be emotionally distressing and triggering for some readers. Please speak with your therapist, physician or support if you are in distress or local crisis line or the ER.
February: a time when the stores are bursting with pink and red, marketing pitches for gifts and “romantic” dates for your special Valentine.
For many, February is a heavy month, reminding them of the contradiction they have lived or continue living …
Intimate partner violence and abuse is a hidden reality for many physicians
“Block the player,” and “hustle” were some of the words that hit my ears as I entered the court to watch my daughter’s basketball game. I felt the sensation of stress. There was the coach on one side of the court with some of the players waiting for their turn to join the game and parents were watching from the other side. Whereas the coach was guiding the players and …
How much pressure is good pressure?
I’m hearing from my physician coaching clients that they are beyond exhausted by this pandemic. They experience judgment toward people who won’t get the vaccine. They are frustrated and angry with the situation. And then they feel guilt or shame for feeling this way.
Both doing the actual work and being a witness to human suffering had already worn doctors out. The additional emotional toll caused by these uncomfortable feelings occurs …
Addressing burnout in the time of COVID
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Every now and then, a physician in a group practice or clinic setting disappears abruptly. Sometimes this is due to illness or a family problem; occasionally, the doctor has encountered a professional difficulty of one sort or another that precludes them from continuing to practice. The abruptly disappearing physician’s patients must be cared for by covering colleagues. This is especially important for patients who are being treated with controlled substances …
I’m covering the practice of a “Dr. Feel Good”
Everyone dreads the Friday 5 p.m. consult.
As a physician-in-training, I had more than one of those. But having young kids waiting to be picked up from daycare made that decision tougher.
In one particularly memorable event, I left work, picked up my daughter from daycare, and headed to catch the commuter train when I received the consult. In those days, bringing your infant with you to work would have been deemed unprofessional. …
What the Friday 5 p.m. consult says about your priorities
Just as we begin to exit the latest surge of the global COVID-19 pandemic another challenge to health care is appearing—the efforts to combat physician burnout.
One example of a proposed solution is the Clinician Experience Project, which is now marketed to improve health care organizations’ patient satisfaction scores. In the midst of the worst global pandemic in 100 years, it is widely recognized that physician burnout is a widespread problem. …
The latest plague of the pandemic: a smartphone app
“Digital mental health apps have increased access to mental health care for people around the world. You can find services that fit your specific needs, often on a 24/7/365 basis, so if you need support in the middle of the night, it’s there. Digital apps can include resource libraries, …
Digital apps and sustaining mental health [PODCAST]
When it comes to eating disorders, there are plenty of incorrect assumptions. Let’s debunk three of them.
Myth: Eating disorders occur only in teenage, rich white girls.
This myth perpetuates stereotypes and can discourage people from getting treatment as they think they do not have an eating disorder as they do not fit the mold.
When people think of eating disorders, the image is often of an emaciated, white teenage girl in the …
3 eating disorder myths that health care professionals should debunk
The COVID-19 pandemic has made mental health conditions so pervasive that, in turn, the stigma that once accompanied seeking treatment has been minimized. As a result, public attention towards psychological health has skyrocketed. Other factors such as the collective loneliness brought on by continuous isolation have resulted in a newfound willingness for people to speak more freely about their emotional wellbeing without judgment or ridicule. Individuals feel much more compelled …
New strategies are needed for mental health treatment
Trigger warning: This article discusses suicidal ideation. Please use your best judgment in reading. I am sharing my journey with caution in hopes that my reflection will help others, and I invite you to continue shall you feel it’s a safe and appropriate time for you to join in this discussion.
I am no stranger to existential crises. The moments where I realize my mortality and have a mild panic about …
Contemplating death taught me how to live
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