“Peace is your home, integrity is the way to it, and everything you long for will meet you there.” – Martha Beck In 2017, the blueprint I had crafted for my life evaporated before my eyes. Up until that point, I had systematically che…
Category: Psychiatry
Doctor, why don’t you care?
“Doctor, why don’t you remember when I was last hospitalized? I told you about that two months ago. You obviously don’t care if you can’t remember. Is all of psychiatry like this? Maybe I need to see someone else. Why won’…
Concerns about the generic formulations of ADHD medications
I love generic brand products. I will fight to the last breath for my Shoppers’ Choice Adhesive Bandages rather than pay an extra $0.49 for Band-Aids. So why, then, have I been paying up to $395 every month for brand-name medication for the last …
Human beings are more than their genes
An excerpt from The Empathy Academy. It might be tempting to choose an easier path, Monty thought, but amid the stress, pain, and tragedy, there were also triumphs: A patient’s seizures stop. A CT scan is clear. He remembered resuscitating Mrs. C…
The invisibility of mental illness
While the mental illness patient is afflicted by very real and painful feelings, these feelings are internal and not visible to others. The indications of the condition then, whether those of depression, anxiety, or even hallucinations, can be said to …
We have overwhelmingly lost touch with the human aspect of medicine
The medical establishment has made wonderful strides in destigmatizing psychiatric disorders. However, we have helped to create a devastating stigmatization of emotional distress. Somehow, as it has become acceptable to suffer from a psychiatric illnes…
Don’t be silent about eating disorders
Until recently, I have remained relatively silent in the realm of eating disorder advocacy and silenced by the exhaustion of my own lived experience with an eating disorder. However, my silence further contributed to the pain. So now, I speak. And as I…
We are behavioral health nurses and we want to thank our public safety officers (PSOs)
We are nurses. We are in highly dangerous and volatile units at hospitals. We are not working in a prison. We work in behavioral health. The intensive management unit, the adolescent unit, the dual-diagnosis unit, and the behavioral health emergency de…
A burnout coach saved my medical career — and possibly my life
I almost quit my job in 2014. I didn’t like my life, and I didn’t like myself. I had a lot of problems personally and professionally, and I wondered if I was good enough to solve them. I often felt weak and powerless. People were coming to …
Organizational approaches to address burnout and moral distress
My interest in the topic of physician wellness dates to my residency. We were required to do a project, and I opted to survey my colleagues about their health habits and concerns. I was not surprised to find that residents were unable to commit to the …
