"I am a woman of history who stands up and tells the truth, irrespective of what other people say. I remember the words of the late Representative John Lewis, 'Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a…
"I am exhausted and sad and disappointed and discouraged. I am losing faith in humanity. Where is the 'love your neighbor as yourself'? Where is the willingness to help each other? Where is the solidarity of those first days? Physicians have gone from being heroes to being villains. We have…
"The truth is, we were all drowning, alone, and hiding behind the image of perfection. Clearly, each of us secretly thought that the others had it all figured out. We were so afraid of admitting weakness or asking for help, so we kept it to ourselves and muddled through, burnt…
"What are altcoins, and should you be investing in them? I cannot speak to whether investing in altcoins is appropriate for you. Altcoins are a highly volatile and risky asset class that offers the potential for high returns. Every investor must decide whether they are willing to bear the associated…
"Go ahead, give yourself permission, summon the compassion and grace you’d bestow on your best friend, and tell yourself, “This is the breadth of the human experience, and I’m only human.” There is immense beauty and strength in that vulnerability. I lied to myself for too long, couldn’t see the…
"When the medical profession—a career you have pursued for years, a career you love and trust to do no harm does something to shatter the foundations of your sense of trust and worldview, the resulting trauma can be severe resulting in loss of sense of self and life-altering betrayal grief…
"I am here to testify that it is possible, and I am not alone in this specialist direct care market. There are other specialists’ practices like mine, hidden gems for patient care. During my journey, I learned specialists are thriving to remove the “middlemen” and reconnect with patients. Patients are…
"At the hospital, the nurse is the one who is at the patient’s bedside around the clock. When the patient has to go to the bathroom or needs help to sit up in a chair, he or she calls the nurse. The nurse is the one who is changing the…
"Many patients, doctors, nurses, and health care administrators appear to have a seat on the blimp with little concept of how the game has evolved over the years and is being played now. They may have attended the game in the past, but they likely haven’t seen the action from…
"We all know watching a module on resilience, sitting in a lecture about mindfulness, being told to practice more yoga and breathing techniques does not make you feel less burnout. It’s having the support and buy-in from your workplace, to actually have the time to do the things that feed…
I did not realize I was a perfectionist. I was far from perfect. It was not until I listened to a master class on perfectionism from a physician coach that I had my “aha moment.” I am now working extremely hard on training my brain to be an imperfectionist. To…
"We have observed that delays in screenings and intervention for patients with certain common chronic conditions can contribute to claims. Now, clinicians have the opportunity to identify patients whose conditions merit priority contact, such as those with cardiac conditions, those on blood pressure medication, or those with diabetes, and request…
"The diagnosis is well-established. A cure is within our reach, and the wisest among our practitioners of the healing arts are offering valuable counsel. When the U.S. government and science, in its most principled form, work together, insulated from a culture of insidious and invidious profiteering, they can put a…
"After much searching, I was fortunate to find a fellowship that though inexperienced in LGBTQ health recognized an opportunity. Faculty and mentors worked from a growth mindset rooted in finding what I needed to succeed rather than what they knew they had to offer at that moment. With their and…
"We physicians must come to terms with the trauma caused by the financial insecurity built into our training and the ripple effect it has even after we finish training, both as a way to repair ourselves individually and as a way to assure that our profession survives. The cost of…
"We have to heal ourselves first. That begins with caring for our own minds and bodies, and souls. It means not avoiding (as I did) caring for our own physical and especially our mental health. It means we must be a part of the lives of our families and loved…
"If you are encountering families with feeding concerns, I strongly encourage you to ask them if sitting down together for meals is part of their regular routine. The more prescriptive 'eat this, not that' or calorie counting model that has been traditionally used in medicine is clearly not working well.…
"Like some insidious conditions, feelings can fester. They can spread like cancer, and sap the spirit of nourishment until it starts to die, riddled with doubt and sensations of inadequacy. They can degrade the soul, as though it were suffering from a systemic inflammatory disease. But this progression, like many…
"Bipolar runs in my family, so I knew the harsh realities of this untreated illness. A family member faked his own death after a counterfeiting spending spree. My grandfather told people that I would die in a car accident, and he would take my body up to the mountain and…
"How do we create a world where all of us can express our unique selves the way we choose without derisiveness and shame? I am not here to criticize the wonderful parents and caregivers who are reading this – they only love their children. Common sense must prevail. I only…
"As the next wave of the pandemic unfolds, the rise in cases is once again straining health care systems. But that’s not the only reason hospitals and health systems could experience an influx of emergency or critical care visits. Findings from the National Poll on Healthy Aging based at the…
"Frontline workers may have temporarily experienced a heightened sense of personal success and gratification, but I doubt many of us are still able to feel satisfied at this point, after all the repeated moral injuries and losing so many patients. COVID-19 assuredly changed me. The virus changed my residency experience.…
"As a mother, a physician, and an educator, I refuse to accept this as normal. It is not! What should we tell the parents of these young physicians? How do we explain to them that their dream of being a doctor became a nightmare with a tragic ending? What do…
"Provider organizations may look at their budgets and think the traditional model of fax machines and landlines is serving their entity in optimizing revenue streams. They may even look at their providers’ full schedules and believe there isn’t a patient population that still needs care. But this would be a…