Psychiatry

Mental health treatment plan goals: Setting providers and patients up for success

Conditions
May 7, 2024

Treatment plans are crucial to a behavioral health practice as they can help improve client outcomes. Setting mental health treatment plan goals and objectives is a crucial aspect of the process, and providers and their clients need to work together in identifying long-term therapy goals. They should also communicate openly about the objectives used to achieve these goals.

The concept of SMART goals can be valuable here. SMART stands for Specific, …

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DEA shuts down pharmacy for fulfilling addiction treatment prescriptions

Physician
May 1, 2024

On August 8, 2023, DEA agents shut down the Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy in the Southern District of West Virginia. Their crime? Having filled more than 2,000 prescriptions for Subutex over more than two years “in the face of obvious red flags of drug abuse and diversion,” according to the U.S. Attorney for that district. I guess someone needs to explain to the government what the heck Subutex is prescribed …

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Reclaiming humanity in health care

Physician
April 30, 2024

Why aren’t we physicians kinder to ourselves? Why aren’t we kinder to our colleagues? Why aren’t we kinder to our patients? I tend to think the answer to all of the above questions is a disrespect many of us have for what we consider being human.

For some reason, many of us in health care associate our humanity only with what holds us back from being our best. In fact, there …

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Voices for physician mental health

Physician
April 29, 2024

I’ve been honored and privileged to have had recent conversations with two courageous women: Betsy Gall and Pamela Marie Hobby.

Pamela met a medical resident who changed the course of her life on October 28, 2019, and Betsy’s life was forever changed exactly one month later, on November 28, 2019.

Betsy wrote a book to share her family’s story. The title grabbed Pamela immediately, as it aligned with what she was building …

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The making of a bed: a timeless ritual passed through generations

Physician
April 29, 2024

Making a bed seems to be a lost art these days, an unassuming ritual. I have memories of my mother draping, folding, laying, and spreading sheets as they danced in her open-air bedroom. My grandmother passed on the technique to her. From my observations of other families, this practice varies from generation to generation. In a way, making a bed symbolizes life’s journey, where the layers of sheets represent rich …

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A doctor’s struggle for patient care

Physician
April 26, 2024

“I maybe have a tiny shred of compassion.”

A doctor I know wrote this in reference to a person they’d never met, a person who had been verbally abusive to many health care professionals. A person who was a prospective patient.

A tiny shred of compassion. Maybe.

I had met the patient in question, was the physician caring for them in the hospital. I was trying to find a PCP who would take …

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The impact of war trauma, the challenge of objectivity, and the power of therapy and storytelling in healing

Physician
April 25, 2024

Trauma in the form of war is one of the worst forms of trauma to endure. How do people remain objective about events and the involved nations when they have been directly or indirectly affected by war?

For example, how are Holocaust survivors and their families able to unemotionally relate to present-day German citizens? How do the descendants of the more than 2,000 allied civilians who were imprisoned in the infamous …

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Unworthiness nearly killed me

Physician
April 24, 2024

In 2016, I sat on a hospital bed in Utah, having flown from North Carolina for specialized medical treatment as my life was slowly slipping away from starvation.

During this time, I was in the Air Force and an oral and maxillofacial surgery resident completing the medical school portion of my training, which I loved. On paper, I had made it. I was finally living the dream I had crafted for …

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Why doctors should embrace uncertainty for better patient outcomes

Physician
April 22, 2024

Recently, I met a coaching client for her second session. As we greeted each other, it was immediately apparent that her energy and mood had shifted from the first session. She seemed lighter, her shoulders were higher, and her posture was straighter. There were smiles instead of tears.

In the initial session, we discussed pressures and expectations. It became clear that these were largely internally generated. Like many doctors, this person …

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Embracing vulnerability: a doctor’s journey of healing and connection

Conditions
April 21, 2024

One doctor I’ve worked with had gotten caught up in the idea of being a doctor. She realized, during her training with us, that she had stopped looking her patients in the eye. In fact, she had stopped making eye contact with her patients when she was in residency. She had to tell these two parents that their baby had died in the womb, and she did not know how …

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Breaking free from denial: Embracing the truth

Conditions
April 21, 2024

I understand it well. You persuade yourself that everything is fine. And then you persuade others that your marriage is perfect.

You’re facing a terminal illness, but you’re the exception because it surely can’t happen to you.

You’re in poor health with unexplained aches and pains, but you avoid visiting your doctors, instead praying to Jesus to alleviate your pain. To heal you of whatever it might be.

Denial. I was a workhorse. …

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Venture-backed telemental health care companies are creating a new opioid epidemic

Meds
April 19, 2024

More Americans are seeking mental health care than ever before, but many people receiving treatment have never met their psychiatrist in person—or even at all.

Telemedicine has been growing in popularity for years, but the COVID-19 pandemic sent tele-health care utilization rates through the roof. Now, after sharp increases brought by COVID-19 lockdowns, American telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels a staggering 38 times higher than before the …

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Embracing imperfection: strategies for growth and self-compassion [PODCAST]

Podcast
April 16, 2024
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Join Caissa Troutman, an obesity medicine physician, as we delve into the intricate relationship between self-perception, mistakes, and personal growth. Caissa shares insights on how our beliefs about perfectionism shape our reactions to …

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Youth are changing perceptions of death: Here’s what they want you to know

Conditions
April 16, 2024

There is a diary entry of mine (Sparks) from when I learned that the pandemic would last longer than we initially thought. 17 years old at the time, I described my feelings of fear at the thought that I may die. “I don’t know if there’s even a point to planning for the future anymore.” I go on to write that whenever I don’t get a response from a loved …

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How psychiatry fails trauma survivors

Conditions
April 15, 2024

Psychiatry has a duty to be trauma-informed, given that 50 to 60 percent of the general population, and around 90 percent of people with severe mental illness, have a lifetime history of at least one traumatic event. Yet the mental health system often falls short.

Consider involuntary hospitalization in a psychiatric unit. Losing one’s freedom can be traumatic for anyone and triggering for those with past trauma of nonconsensual experiences. …

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Navigating self-judgment with compassion

Physician
April 15, 2024

Earlier this week, I made a stupid mistake, and that mistake cost us our dental and vision insurance for the year 2024.

You see, I had my COBRA from my old job that I had planned to keep, as the kids still had braces, and switching midway apparently resulted in non-coverage. So, I spent a lot of time researching it and setting it up so we would retain the dental component. …

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Overparenting: Finding solace amidst criticism

Conditions
April 14, 2024

An excerpt from A Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving.

“Work always lacks effort,” “Just no interest whatsoever,” “Inattention,” “Disturbance,” “Silly conduct,” the teachers’ remarks read. All those criticisms could have defined your scribe’s output.

They are rather the report card marginalia of a class clown. Another outstanding pupil with an alleged 29 detentions in one year and an unbidden nuisance in class exhibitionism. No contemporary would have ever …

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Pageantry: an unconventional education for aspiring psychiatrists

Physician
April 12, 2024

With the elegant gowns, stylized hair, carefully applied makeup, and moments in the spotlight, beauty pageants have attracted longstanding criticism for being allegedly superficial competitions that foster narcissism. But beneath the surface lies a wealth of opportunities for personal growth and skill development. Most modern pageants have moved away from being modeling competitions that assess superficial beauty. Instead, they have been reframed as personality competitions, evaluating qualities such as communication …

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Suspicions of medical child abuse delayed my child’s cancer diagnosis

Conditions
April 10, 2024

It was November 2014. I was leaving the parking structure of my local children’s hospital when I realized, “They don’t believe us.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but it would take seven more months to find the cause of my eight-year-old daughter’s unremitting abdominal pain. An ultrasound ultimately revealed a malignant mass on the adrenal gland. Ultrasound is a rudimentary imaging technique, so why did it take …

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Integrated coaching in physician residency training [PODCAST]

Podcast
April 8, 2024
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

We sit down with psychiatrist Lind Grant-Oyeye to explore the transformative power of integrated coaching in physician residency training. We delve into the nuances of integrated coaching, its structured approach to continuous growth, …

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CME Spotlights