“Oh, you’re a psychiatrist? I hope you won’t analyze me!” I never know what people actually mean when they say that upon learning that I work as a psychiatrist. I think they’re saying, “I hope you’re not going to spend our time together trying to discern my flaws.” Nobody wants people to seek out, highlight, and […]
Gratitude may be more beneficial than we commonly suppose. One recent study asked subjects to write a note of thanks to someone and then estimate how surprised and happy the recipient would feel – an impact that they consistently underestimated. Another study assessed the health benefits of writing thank you notes. The researchers found that […]
It’s been a gut-punch kind of time for many of us, and I want to say a few things that I think are important. First of all, I really love working with you guys. It is the best part of my job, hands down. I have taken stock of my career lately, and I keep […]
Fortnite Season 5 has officially arrived — bringing new features, a new maps, and new skins. Parents can anticipate battles over the amount of time spent playing the game to “level up” with your teens. If you are not familiar with this game, then it likely means that you are not the parent of a […]
Just recently, New York and Virginia became the first two states to mandate that mental health become incorporated into school curriculums. New York passed a law for educators to teach material on mental health beginning from elementary school continuing on to high school. Virginia’s legislation intertwines mental health education with physical and health education for […]
We bear the pain in different ways. For me, it feels like you’re a combat medic and you’ve used up all your tourniquets on a wounded soldier that seems to hemorrhaging from everywhere. The blood seeps through the skin, and no matter what you do you cannot stop the soldier from choking to death on […]
Physicians on the front lines of health care today are sometimes described as going to battle. It’s an apt metaphor. Physicians, like combat soldiers, often face a profound and unrecognized threat to their well-being: moral injury. Moral injury is frequently mischaracterized. In combat veterans it is diagnosed as post-traumatic stress; among physicians it’s portrayed as […]
A lot has been written about Suboxone, the buprenorphine treatment drug. For many, Suboxone acts as an effective medication to treat opioid addiction. For others, it’s a highly-valued street drug that is commonly diverted and misused. To understand and acknowledge the darker side of Suboxone we have to look back at its history over the […]
I was always worried about doing well on board exams. I didn’t want to simply pass them; I wanted to excel. Before I took exams, rumor had it that a person would have to intentionally fail Step 1, 2, or 3 and that failing Step 2 CS was virtually impossible. The truth, I learned, is […]
The face of a 2-year-old Honduran girl, dwarfed by the adults who only appear as legs in the photo, communicates undeniable anguish. Used to represent the horror of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, the photo became a lightning rod for controversy when it turned out that this particular child was not […]
