Most of us have heard the phrase “success is about who you know,” and that couldn’t be more true. The people we surround ourselves with are a direct reflection of our life and success. One thing that affects this is emotional intellig…
Category: Psychiatry
A physician’s story of dissociative identity disorder
An excerpt from Brain Storm: A Life in Pieces. The first time it happened, I sat only a few feet away from Yael in her tiny office, a position that usually made me feel safe, but this time I was about to explode. “Shelley, what’s going on?” I couldn’t …
Why the pandemic will impact mental health for years, and 3 concerning side effects
Consumer demand for mental and behavioral health services reached a fever pitch in 2020. From prolonged social distancing and financial strains, to the burnout of extra caretaking, grief over tremendous loss, and the monotony of working from home, the…
Ketamine’s non-anesthetic powers: Please wait for the science
Ketamine (colloquially called “K,” “Special K,” or “Vitamin K”) is a potent, dissociative anesthetic. More specifically, it is a nonselective NMDA antagonist that initiates a wide array of physiological effects, alre…
Organizations that nurture physicians’ careers can attract and retain the best doctors
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of assisting more than 2,000 distressed physicians – some with burnout, others with “rough edges,” still others with psychiatric conditions or misuse of drugs and alcohol. Some of these doctors were s…
The unspoken pandemic in frontline health care workers
The pandemic has impacted many of us around the world, especially the frontline health care workers — myself included here in Melbourne, Australia. It is time we address these issues and bring the conversation into the open. Politicians talk about open…
Restoring the heroes in the aftermath of the pandemic
You stand up from your desk, take a deep breath, and get to work. It’s business as usual. There are exams to perform, test results to review, referrals to be made, and patients to console. A patient’s son is on the phone, concerned about his mom’s upco…
Restoring the heroes in the aftermath of the pandemic
You stand up from your desk, take a deep breath, and get to work. It’s business as usual. There are exams to perform, test results to review, referrals to be made, and patients to console. A patient’s son is on the phone, concerned about his mom’s upco…
Shame and the medical profession [PODCAST]
“We can’t escape shame. But don’t despair, dear reader, because shame resilience can be cultivated. There are mental-fitness skills that can be learned which are self-perpetuating. I taught myself these skills and, in doing so, healed my own woun…
As the pandemic winds down, another crisis may be looming
Imagine this scenario: a busy mom struggles to balance work and parenting during the pandemic when suddenly her teenage son begins to anger. He gets out of control, screams threats, and kicks a hole in the wall. Neighbors call the police, who recommend…
