Posts Tagged

wellness

Today, I’m referring not to your “hopes and dreams” (which, yes, are extremely important), but to those experiences that primarily occur during the sleep phase of Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Healthy sleep and dreaming often go hand-in-hand. Dreams have important functions, appearing to be involved in “offline” reorganization/consolidation of memory, emotional processing, and learning. Freud […]

It’s all in your head. Or maybe your gut. Common idioms relate to the association between the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and emotions: “Trust your gut” (instinct); “That made me sick to my stomach” (disgust); “I have butterflies in my stomach” (anxiety); “Show some guts” (courage). There has been significant interest of late in research on […]

When I was quite young, I asked my mother, who was on her way to the big city of Fargo, to purchase a Beatles 45 rpm record for me (kids, look it up). When received, I anxiously threw the platter on the hi-fi (again…look it up) and heard Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops playing […]

Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, events centered on New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The evening before the anniversary, I attended a small American Psychological Association (APA) caucus meeting. Of the nine physicians present, three had witnessed different memorial sites from that day: the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and […]

Some sayings in medicine are rather obsolete (“Watch one, do one, teach one,” for example). Both in medicine and society, we might hear, “Fake it till you make it.” There is both wisdom and risk in this. Clearly the risk relating to those in safety-sensitive occupations (healthcare, aviation, engineering) would be misrepresenting one’s ability or […]

There are many ways to spend your breaks at work. You could answer a few more emails, take a walk, sit outside, catch up on your to-do list, scroll through your phone, or, if you’re feeling like a multitasker, eat lunch outside while answering emails and scrolling through your phone. Or you could read a […]

Last weekend I attended the funeral of a family friend. Having been raised in a large extended Irish Catholic family, I have been attending funerals since childhood (and hearing entertaining stories about Irish wakes). Some individuals experience grief often, and from an early age. Others may be able to avoid it well into adulthood. But […]

Today, I’m not referring to Galen’s four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm), which ancient physicians believed governed health and temperament. Instead, I’m talking about humor in the modern sense: our ability to recognize, create, and share what is considered “funny.” Every essay on humor in healthcare begins with the line “laughter is […]

In medicine, patients rely on practitioners’ and the healthcare system’s expertise. The hope is that any “flaws” that occur are minor, and don’t contribute to significant harm. But as the seminal 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine indicated, we have work to do. Whether we are talking about early academics (MCATs/GPAs) or clinical practice, […]

It’s university Commencement season: the time of year when people earn not just diplomas, but “titles.” Certainly, the most common title heard in the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences is “Dr.” Interestingly, across the pond, once membership is gained into the Royal College of Surgeons in England, those physicians typically eschew the title […]