(Warning: This blog post contains minor spoilers for the Disney movie Encanto ) There I was. In a movie theater for the first time in almost 2 years. The occasion: to celebrate my youngest child attaining full vaccine immunity (2 weeks out from the second Pfizer vaccine). We wore our N95 masks and skipped the popcorn. One…
1 CommentGuest post by Leah Walsh In this guest post, author Leah Walsh explains what it means if you are one of the 20% of the human population to have a personality trait now established as “highly sensitive”, and how that might affect you if you work in a caregiving profession. Be sure to read through…
Comments closedHappy week of International Women’s Day 2019 (IWD2019)! In the spirit of this year’s IWD2019 theme, #BalanceforBetter, I pulled together this collection of posts from and about women in medicine. I hope you will draw inspiration from them for your own lives and practices. 1. Being a Woman, by Dr. Anne Malatt An uplifting reflection…
Comments closedIn celebration of Valentine’s Day this week, it seemed fitting to put together a post on the concept of love in medicine. Only…there’s not many of us out there writing on the topic. After a google search of “love in medicine” and “love and doctoring”, I found the following three posts, and have included one…
Comments closedThere are small moments of reflection that pop up in any given day that can affect how we approach our practice of medicine. Something at home affecting us at work, or vice versa. Like a Venn diagram, the two circles overlapping by just that slight amount at the center. One such recent intersection for me…
Comments closedWhen I first turned to writing as a method to cope with the stresses of my practice, I had no knowledge of the field of narrative medicine. In fact, I had been through 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency, 3 years of subspecialty fellowship, and over a decade in the practice of…
Comments closedAn oncologist colleague once said to me at a funeral, “People assume that as oncologists, we understand more about death than other people. But we really don’t.” He then faced a church filled with mourners and delivered a heartrending eulogy. I’ve thought of his words often since. Every time I counsel a patient and family…
Comments closedOne morning not so long ago, I found myself sitting in my car in the parking lot of my clinic. Unable to will myself to open the door. I didn’t want to head in to the clinic that morning. Instead I was filled with despair; overwhelmed with the events of the world. How can I…
Comments closedThe term “compassion fatigue” might imply that physical fatigue leads to the loss of ability to feel compassion for others. After all, what physician hasn’t experienced running on too little reserve? Feeling some degree of emotional numbness? Many physicians may not realize, however, that compassion fatigue can go much deeper. Physicians and other health caregivers…
4 Commentsupdated 3/17/19 A short story on the meaning of burnout. The return from a vacation weighed on me physically. This had been a true vacation – an entire week away spent with my family, away from clinic and the burden of care. I even managed to unplug to the point of only checking email on…
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