physician wellness

Then somewhere along the way, you lost your way...

From medical school to residency and beyond, you've sacrificed yourself to save others. While prioritizing them, you eventually put yourself in danger. Risking your life to secure your livelihood. 

The care you provided to others was not provided to you. What you experienced was not what you signed up for. There was not even any fine print to warn you otherwise.

A 'broken' system preyed on your altruism, leaving you broken in the process. As a physician wellness coach, it's my passion to work together to put your pieces back together! 

You are a persistent premed student, who made it through STEM curriculum designed to discourage the casual dreamer and intended to weed out the chosen from the wannabees...

You are a junior medical student, who endured grueling courses and frequent examinations, sacrificing your present for your future, while conducting animal experiments and dissecting human cadavers...

You are a senior medical student, who was ridiculed by everyone more senior that you (including the nurses) for being short on knowledge, out of place, and out of sorts (like your short white coat) as you rotated through hospital units like an orphan in search of a home...

You are an impressionable intern, who tolerated being hazed like an NFL rookie in training camp, but for much longer, while being pimped by the attendings you aspired to be as you were prostituted as an expert in digital rectal examinations...

You are a resilient resident struggling to manage life and work, watching your contemporaries living life unencumbered while you and your colleagues forget what normal life is like in between taking call and taking cover...

You are a chief resident or fellow, second-guessing your career path and questioning your ability, but you've invested too much time and energy to turn back now; so you forge ahead to the guiding light at the end of the tunnel only to be greeted by a dumpster fire instead...

You are an academic attending, who is juggling the responsibilities of teaching, research, publishing, and committees, while battling bureaucracy and wondering if your position is as secure as you assumed it to be...

You are a private practice physician, who is juggling the responsibilities of marketing, billing, human resources, and customer service, while loathing autonomy as you calculate the cost of the price you paid for your imaginary emancipation...

You are a medical martyr willing to advocate for your patients against insurance companies, big pharma, and other agencies whose agendas keep you burned out and buried under student loans, electronic documentation, and prior authorizations...

You are a devout doctor who took an oath to do no harm, so you take it personally when any harm occurs to patients on your watch, even if it was out of your control...

You are a kind-hearted and selfless soul, whose love language is acts of service; whose generosity is taken advantage of and whose boundaries are habitually ignored for more demands of your time, to which you could never reply 'No'...

You are a whole human, who finds it challenging to process feelings because you've been conditioned to only process thoughts and to compartmentalize your emotions, so that the next patient doesn't feel the fallout from the last one... 

You are a high-achieving, problem-solving, critical-thinking, do-it-all, who is stuck on how to get unstuck, unfulfilled in all your accomplishments and isolated from help because you've distanced yourself from ever receiving it...

Take my hand, and let me help you, to help you. Before you were anything described above, YOU were YOU. Your identity should be in your purpose as a person, not in your performance as a physician. Let's engage in YOUR self-exploration, self-discovery, and self-revelation during this journey together. Start here.

Saboteurs are the voices in your head that generate negative emotions when you handle life’s challenges. They exist in the brainstem, limbic system, and parts of the left brain. They produce much of your stress, anxiety, self-doubt, anger, shame, guilt, frustration, and mind chatter. These negative emotions are only helpful for a second as they alert you to dangers or issues. However, staying in these emotions hurts your ability to see clearly and choose the most impactful response.

Your Sage lives in an entirely different region of your brain, the middle prefrontal cortex, “empathy circuitry,” and parts of the right brain. It generates positive emotions while handling life’s challenges. These include empathy, compassion, gratitude, curiosity, joy of creativity, and calm, clear-headed laser-focused action. This region is wired for creativity and big-picture awareness of what is important and the best course of action.

Activating this region results in release of endorphins that counter the negative impacts of stress-induced cortisol.