Category: Conditions

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

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…

Virtual rehabilitation of central sensitization syndromes

Modern medicine often fails to effectively manage complex chronic conditions. Physicians are often constrained by tightly packed clinic schedules, leaving only brief windows of time for each patient encounter. While this setup may allow for basic diagn…

Science supports it and patients want it: Bringing whole-person care to cancer treatment

Patients, as the primary stakeholders in their own well-being, are increasingly showing a profound interest in holistic approaches to cancer care that extend beyond traditional medical treatments. Growing evidence supports this interest, showing that s…

Empowering patients to discuss sexual health

I’m sure you can picture it. You’re sitting in an exam room wearing a paper gown, waiting for your health care provider to walk in the room. There are a few colorful posters on the wall about flu season, health screenings, and a discount pr…

From doctor to patient: my Sjogren’s journey and a challenge to colleagues

As physicians, we are trained to dissect symptoms and to hunt for a diagnosis. But my own journey with Sjogren’s, like my patients’, wasn’t a textbook case. It was a puzzle with pieces scattered over decades, ignored or dismissed at e…

Alzheimer’s agony: a son’s vow to never endure

An excerpt from Winter’s End: Dementia and Dying Well. Are there really fates worse than death? Like most people, Dan Winter was uncertain. That is until he visited his father at a memory care unit in Lawrence, Kansas. Dan’s father had been…

Navigating COVID: a journey from academic intensity to healing

Springtime. Blooming trees. Green grass. Cool winds. Sunny skies. COVID. That is where my mind wanders every year since 2020, when the season turns. I flash back to the drive between the hospital and my home. Every evening after fighting a losing battl…

I had a (incorrect) memory screening. Have you even had one?

Although it’s hard for me to comprehend and even harder to admit, I’m “of age” to be on Medicare. Recently, I visited my primary care physician (PCP) for a Medicare Annual Wellness Visit, a one-hour appointment that requires the…

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

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 sh…

Breaking free from denial: Embracing the truth

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&#82…