Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Physician Wellness & Life Design”
I am human, and my frailties are many. This is not a religious confession, but rather, a preface to explain one facet of my motivation for a recent financial move. But first, let’s obtain some context. I was speaking by phone to my sister today. Being the product of the same upbringing, we share a similar pathology when it comes …
It is a paradoxical time of stasis and upheaval. At the macro level, the world is burning, figuratively and literally (at least in the West where I live). The upcoming election has both political parties highly polarized and in full propaganda mode. International interference in the upcoming election from unsavory outside actors seems more real and potentially more consequential now …
Might meritocracy undermine one’s sense of humility? It’s an unusual line of argument, but one that caught my eye in a recent alumni magazine article reviewing the political theorist Michael Sandel’s newest work, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? A year ago this month, I wrote about another interesting piece by Daniel Markovits debating the success …
In medicine, the suffix -algia indicates pain. Neuralgia is nerve pain. Myalgias are muscle aches of the type that we commonly feel during an acute viral illness (it is one of the common symptoms of COVID 19). Nostalgia combines the Greek nostos, to return home, with -algia, pain. We regard others who dwell in nostalgia as prone to melancholy, pining …
It was during one of my return visits home from college, and I was in the vulnerable seat that is the barber’s chair. I sometimes imagine a barber offering an old-fashioned lather and shave with a sharp blade – a man submits his neck to a stranger with a knife, trusting that no harm will follow. It’s an interesting exercise, …
I recently reconnected with someone I’d been out of touch with since the start of the COVID pandemic. On paper, he’s a cliche of a 1950s American male – works in tech, married with kids and a non-working spouse, living on the east coast. He and his wife have a traditional marriage more characteristic of prior generations – a division …
It’s my lot in life to be the last to know. I find out about relationships in the ER after an engagement ring has been presented, a child has been born or a staff member has departed. There are ambivalent aspects to my naivete – it’s arguably more difficult to enter the line of fire when you never knew where …
I just finished reading Barbarian Days, a delicately wrought memoir by William Finnegan, a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine. Finnegan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2016 for this book. Finnegan’s gift is to use his lifelong obsession with surfing as a lens to explore the eventual unfurling of a unique and distinguished life path. His …
Some of the more fantastic ethical dilemmas I encountered as a child were accompanied by Rod Serling’s haunting narration on black and white episodes of The Twilight Zone. It’s only now, as an adult member of society during a public health crisis, that I am able to draw fully on the parables from that strange and unforgettable sci-fi series. One …
Uncharacteristically wet morning in late June, more than drizzle but less than rain. Beyond the wall of windows in the great room: expected coastal fog but with asphalt roads visibly soaked enough to preclude my comfortably taking a morning bike ride. Seattle riders wouldn’t think twice, but it takes so little to stop a Californian. I am reading the poet …