On August 8, 2023, DEA agents shut down the Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy in the Southern District of West Virginia. Their crime? Having filled more than 2,000 prescriptions for Subutex over more than two years “in the face of obvious red flags of d…
Category: Psychiatry
Reclaiming humanity in health care
Why aren’t we physicians kinder to ourselves? Why aren’t we kinder to our colleagues? Why aren’t we kinder to our patients? I tend to think the answer to all of the above questions is a disrespect many of us have for what we consider …
Voices for physician mental health
I’ve been honored and privileged to have had recent conversations with two courageous women: Betsy Gall and Pamela Marie Hobby. Pamela met a medical resident who changed the course of her life on October 28, 2019, and Betsy’s life was forev…
The making of a bed: a timeless ritual passed through generations
Making a bed seems to be a lost art these days, an unassuming ritual. I have memories of my mother draping, folding, laying, and spreading sheets as they danced in her open-air bedroom. My grandmother passed on the technique to her. From my observation…
A doctor’s struggle for patient care
“I maybe have a tiny shred of compassion.” A doctor I know wrote this in reference to a person they’d never met, a person who had been verbally abusive to many health care professionals. A person who was a prospective patient. A tiny …
The impact of war trauma, the challenge of objectivity, and the power of therapy and storytelling in healing
Trauma in the form of war is one of the worst forms of trauma to endure. How do people remain objective about events and the involved nations when they have been directly or indirectly affected by war? For example, how are Holocaust survivors and their…
Unworthiness nearly killed me
In 2016, I sat on a hospital bed in Utah, having flown from North Carolina for specialized medical treatment as my life was slowly slipping away from starvation. During this time, I was in the Air Force and an oral and maxillofacial surgery resident co…
Why doctors should embrace uncertainty for better patient outcomes
Recently, I met a coaching client for her second session. As we greeted each other, it was immediately apparent that her energy and mood had shifted from the first session. She seemed lighter, her shoulders were higher, and her posture was straighter. …
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. YouR…
