Have you ever gone on a retreat? I’m not talking about the Scouts of America kind, and I’m not talking about the one day the residents took off training to do team-building exercises and trust walks. Nope, family vacations do not count, as …
Category: primary care
Ensuring equitable, quality treatment of pain in Black and marginalized people
In my recent TEDx Talk titled, Why Black Patients Don’t Trust the Healthcare System, I explored racially-based medical algorithms and their impact on health outcomes for Black patients. As a physician, I believe such algorithms have no place in the mod…
Institutional betrayal vs. courage
The pandemic has brutalized health care such that the term “institutional betrayal” (IB) is becoming part of the physician vernacular. This cringe-worthy term is being used to point a finger of shame at health care leaders and systems who p…
Can love fight burnout?
Symptoms of burnout that are plaguing physicians and society include feelings of cynicism, apathy, depersonalization, and fatigue. These are associated with anxiety, depression, and suicide. In fact, more than 400 physicians each year die by suicide. S…
Mental Health Technologies: Revolutionizing technology within the behavior health care field
This article is sponsored by Mental Health Technologies (MHT), a cloud-based platform that enables health care providers to screen and measure mental health and substance abuse disorders. Mental Health Technologies (MHT) brings much-needed technologica…
Not listening carefully to a vulnerable patient can become a matter of life or death
Paula came to my office on a Monday afternoon, a few months after burying her husband. She and John had been inseparable. They were both my patients, so I knew John had spent the last six months battling lung cancer. They had been married forty-five ye…
There is no cure for your disease
I shall translate. This is her big day! She is meeting with her specialist for the first time, excited to finally hear that she will be cured from her annoying disease. I am there to interpret back and forth between her and her doctor to eliminate the …
So what if cry with my patients?
Ashley, one of my colleagues, and I discussed whether or not a doctor, nurse, or other providers of care should cry or show emotion with a patient or client. We’re not speaking of meltdowns or becoming so emotionally involved that it impairs our …
Punishing doctors for spreading misinformation
When I was in high school, I read George Orwell’s 1984, a novel about a dystopian future where the government (a.k.a. Big Brother) monitors everything the citizenry says or thinks. Anyone deviating from government “doublespeak” is swi…
Provider me not
I am not your provider. There are days I loudly scream silently within the profundity of my soul, “Lord, please do not let them call me ‘provider’ one more time.” I do not merely present to you to give you something you can use …
