"being with"

how many times a day do i tell my patients, 
take some slow, deep breaths.
as i listen to their lungs
and how many times do i tell myself to do the same?
not often. 
physician, heal thyself.

in true reflection, we embrace our existence.

i miss the therapeutic outlet of writing. i've been clammed up, probably from working so hard that the last thing i want to do is sit down and think through everything that's happened in the whirlwind of the last 5 months. also, with HIPAA rules i absolutely have to be very judicious about what i even process through about work on the public channels.

it's hard. which puts the onus on me to really take the time to debrief in-person on challenging or emotionally rending patient situations with my co-residents and faculty, so that it doesn't become a big ball of darkness and fury that continues to consolidate over my residency, leaving me drained and burned out. i refuse to lose my personhood! i will fight the tendency to minimize my feelings and experiences in an effort to be stoic and advance forward.

Senior Moments

Oh elderly folk, how I adore ye.  

A little background on my interest in senior citizens-- apart from some geriatric medicine experiences during inpatient and outpatient rotations, I had not had a chance to really spend some quality time with senior citizens in a few years, and I missed it.  Before med school, I served as a companion for hospice patients and learned a great deal about how  hospice programs do such excellent work in holistically taking care of the multifaceted needs of dying patients and those who love them.  I also had the chance to work with an awesome grassroots org, Bridging Communities, where I assessed the needs of at-risk Detroit elders and connected them with resources to ensure basic needs were met and support services in place, allowing clients to age with dignity, surrounded by supportive community.

Which brings me to my most recent experience, volunteering at Luther Manor, a skilled nursing facility right down the street from where I used to live.  There is something so excellent about being connected to someone familiar with a past you've never personally known - to hear their perspectives on how things have changed, or stayed the same.  To bask in nostalgia over a cup of ice cream with 50s tunes filling our ears.  To do a twirl and a dance step from decades past.  With every set of fingernails I painted, every family photo album we paged through, each row of knitting/pearling that we took turns on, something special happened.  These simple activities allowed me to see a light in each resident I had the chance to get to know - their passions, values, heartaches...

It was not always fun and games.  No matter how excellent the care a facility offers, I expect that there is always going to be some element of suffering that permeates any "old folks' home".  Common themes that I noticed were expressing frustration of overwhelming physical ailments, reflecting on the pain of injustices endured from their past, and mourning lost independence in the face of isolation.  I think it's easy for younger, able-bodied people to think, it's for your own good that you're here; it's not safe for you to be home alone.  But we don't often acknowledge the trauma of being forced to leave one’s home due to inability to live independently, and having to live in an unfamiliar environment against their will.  It was good therapeutic practice to explore some of these feelings with residents, and to remind myself that this is a not uncommon sentiment that I should continue to be aware of as I care for nursing home residents in the future.  

Soup Kitchen Insights

I wanted to highlight another pretty great organization I volunteered with in Saginaw, the East Side Soup Kitchen.  This is a charitable organization that has been around for almost 35 years.  We had originally learned about ESSK through our Leadership in Medicine for the Underserved (LMU) program, but unfortunately I hadn't had a chance to work closely with them until after graduation because they operate a full-service kitchen Monday-Friday (a great service to its attendees, but not an ideal schedule for a busy med student!).  In addition to the daily lunches, ESSK also provides bag lunches to latch-key programs and hosts periodic optical & medical volunteers.

Food for the Soul

Finding myself with some extra free time during my downtime between med school and residency, I was looking for a volunteer opportunity that would leave me feeling soul-filled.  I remembered a pretty awesome organization that does amazing work in the Saginaw community, First Ward Community Center.  First Ward is a support/advocacy network, providing services for children, adults, and seniors.  

The east side of the Saginaw River, where First Ward is located, is generally the part of the city most fraught with poverty, crime, abandoned homes, etc.  For some people, it's a no-man's-land, a forgotten sector where few outsiders dare to traverse.  If only they knew the richness of community and the incredible potential hidden within...

Brave Advocacy

When I was at a meeting of some of the awesome leadership of MedFLAG (Medical Friends of Lesbians & Gays, the queer/ally group of my med school), I remember one person brought up her frustration with always having to carry the burden of being the "spokesperson" for her class, the token med student who could explain concepts that were foreign to her colleagues, like how to avoid heteronormative speak when interviewing patients, how to be culturally sensitive with LGBT folks, etc.  While it can be rewarding to be an advocate, of sorts, for oppressed individuals and communities, it can also be exhausting to seemingly always have to be the one person who addresses problematic issues - like lobbying for a unisex bathroom that is inclusive for transgender/genderqueer people, or campaigning to bring more diverse faculty members into an ethnically homogeneous academic environment.

Male Sexual/Reproductive Health

I've been meaning to post about an interesting topic that piqued my interest at the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians (MAFP) Scientific Assembly -- men's health.  This talk was given by Dr. Wendy Grube, sexual health guru at Penn School of Nursing.

FUN FACT:
2/3 of female teens get STI/HIV/pregnancy counseling, compared to only 1/3 of their male counterparts.