The first day I sought counseling, I felt like I was committing a crime. Our afternoon anatomy lecture had just ended, and the entirety of our first-year medical class—clad in hunter green scrubs and reciting the intrinsic muscles of the back—paraded i…
The front-desk clerk, Ruth, comes to me and says Rose Henderson wants a cab voucher signed — which guaranteed payment. Rose could not be made to understand, Ruth tells me, that we are not permitted to sign vouchers when the person, the client, comes to…
“Under duress, we do not rise to our expectations. We fall to our level of training.” – Bruce Lee (supposedly) When I was looking for My Patient, well before his neighbor grabbed my butt, I remember noticing that most of the slots in …
Tiramisu, chocolate mousse, red velvet cake, freshly baked cookies, and warm brownies topped with ice cream. These are some of my favorite desserts and the things I start thinking about when I am under intense stress. I often gaze at the bakery section…
It takes an average of 10 years between symptom onset for mental health conditions to be accurately diagnosed and therefore treated. In addition to general misunderstandings about mental health, the nationwide shortage of mental health providers is one…
Wiley Boynton is dead. I first heard the news when Katie, a colleague, called me on my cell phone. Wiley had been taken to the hospital with a knife wound. I asked her right away: “Self-inflicted?” “I think so,” she said. A self…
We knew that the most powerful way to provide substance abuse treatment is in a group setting. Group members can offer support to each other and call out each other’s self-deceptions and public excuses, oftentimes more effectively than the clinicians. …
I recently discovered a fact about the United States of America that should be a source of embarrassment for all Americans. What I found out is this: There is not a single safe injection site anywhere in the entire country. Safe injection sites save th…
Anita is 37 with blonde, wild, disheveled hair. She is overweight, has bad teeth, wears too much make-up, and is severely depressed — sometimes psychotic. She tells me she often hears voices. And she constantly complains that the medicine she gets from…
When I first saw Jea-Hyoun, in a medical meet-cute straight out of a romantic comedy, she was being evaluated for thyroid cancer. I was an allergy/immunology fellow harried by a pile of paperwork. She was a patient, in the same building where she saw p…
