As health care workers, we spend most days in hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and the like — places that are concrete containers for pain and human suffering. And we are bound to be affected by what we see, even if it isn’t apparent. Most people …
Category: Psychiatry
People who take opioids are the AIDS patients of today
Stigma towards health conditions interferes with access to compassionate care. Both social stigmas from friends and family and medical stigma from professionals are issues. Perhaps the worst recent example of medical stigma is how people with HIV/AIDS …
How secondary post-traumatic stress contributes to physician burnout
Physicians have the highest rate of suicide of any profession in the U.S., including military service. We lose about one doctor per day in the U.S. to suicide. The high levels of stress, lack of sleep, ease of self-medication, and reluctance to seek me…
How secondary post-traumatic stress contributes to physician burnout
Physicians have the highest rate of suicide of any profession in the U.S., including military service. We lose about one doctor per day in the U.S. to suicide. The high levels of stress, lack of sleep, ease of self-medication, and reluctance to seek me…
A physician’s sudden, disastrous day. And its tragic consequences.
An excerpt from Physician Suicide: Cases and Commentaries. “Dear Richard and Yvonne, I feel I have no choice but to end my life and am doing so in the hope that you will take this letter and employ it in the way that I suggest below. Please use what ha…
How this physician fought imposter syndrome
It took me a long time to put a name to what I was feeling. Only recently had I started to read about imposter syndrome. I’ve had this feeling multiple times throughout my life, and it always had the potential to pull me backward instead of allow…
It’s time for physicians to be less “productive”
Physician compensation in most employed positions is based on how much a physician “produces.” I work as a psychiatrist, and this amounts to how many patients you see per hour. The more patients you see, the more “productive” you are, the more money yo…
When medical experts say “first,” be careful
Spot the word “first” in a headline, and you might assume a major milestone has been reached. Think first person on the moon, first woman on the Supreme Court. But in health care news, things heralded for being first might not amount to a c…
3 things about psychiatry that don’t focus on pathology
I was asked to present information about mental health to a lay audience. This is both an exciting and daunting task. I imagine it’s like asking someone to talk about fish. There are so many kinds of fish! They live in many habitats! Some of them look …
Second victim syndrome: a doctor’s hidden struggle
As physicians, we have embraced a calling where we help others. A commitment many of us fully relish. We are grateful for our patients and the families who put their trust in us as we diagnose and treat their sometimes incredibly complex illnesses. I h…
