Health & Wellness
Who the heck needs it? It’s personal, can hurt deeply and can leave an indelible emotional scar. Fact is, just like the air we breathe, we live in a world where rejection is all around us, always has been, always will be.
Rejection is part and parcel to life in general, to systems and eco-systems, to processes, to negotiations, to decisions, to change and reactions to change. Arguably, the worst types of rejection occurs when the body rejects an organ transplant or chemotherapy.
The Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times,” seems to be active today, activating our anxiety. Globally. The news sounds more and more like the most alarming drum roll. In the past few weeks, the world has been gripped by reports of terrorist plots and attacks in the US, in France, in Bangladesh, in Istanbul, in Baghdad, in Munich. Refugees from Syria are drowning by the hundreds as they desperately seek a safe foothold. Everywhere the number of the dead mounts.
Continue reading When Eye Rolls are Appropriate – by Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D.
As I look back sixteen years, I can’t help but thank God for how much He has done for me. I especially thank God for my parents who decided to keep me, instead of aborting me. To all my family, friends, classmates and church members, thank you for encouraging me when I was down, and spending time with me when I was recovering from my craniofacial surgeries.
Continue reading Sweet Sixteen & Craniofacial Acceptance Month – by Philip Matthews
Guess what readers? It took me 25 hours to go from Dallas to Germany a while back.
But don’t feel sorry for me because that trip was one of my best ever. Now before telling me to get a checkup from the neck up, bear with me for a moment. I’ll get to the rest of the story further down. I first need to come clean with you on a revelation.
Continue reading Learn to Relish the Inconvenience – by Terry Howard
The holidays can be a wonderful and cozy time of year. We reconnect with those long forgotten warm sweaters that have waited patiently for us in the back of our closets. Everything we eat and drink is pumpkin flavored. We start to look longingly at our fireplaces, and even anticipate the first snowfall. But for many people, the shift out of daylight savings and other harbingers of fall and winter create feelings of anxiety, loneliness, anger, and depression. Many therapists report an upswing in referrals this time of year, and the focus is often on the difficult feelings that colder weather, less sunshine, and the approaching holiday season evokes.
The world was recently rocked by the untimely death of Robin Williams by suicide. Some called him weak and a coward. Some wondered how he could just leave his friends and loved ones so callously. Some wondered how such a funny and talented person could just give it all up so horribly. The truth is he didn’t die by suicide. That may have been his final act but it didn’t kill him. It was his depression that killed him long before he finally hung himself.
In much of the Developed World, we’ve struggled with the worst economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In addition, we live in a culture that has grown increasingly pessimistic in the face of multiple global challenges that seem too complex for our species to navigate. Pessimism seems a lot smarter, certainly more hip, than optimism.
To achieve organizational cultural competence within the health care leadership and workforce, it is important to maximize diversity. This may be accomplished through:
• Establishing programs for minority health care leadership development and strengthening existing programs. The desired result is a core of professionals who may assume influential positions in academia, government, and private industry.
• Hiring and promoting minorities in the health care workforce.
• Involving community representatives in the health care organization’s planning and quality improvement meetings.
Continue reading Cultural Competence in Healthcare – by Dr. Joseph Betancourt
He was showing me paintings that hung on his living room wall. He had painted these over the years and wanted me to have one. He pointed to a painting of a Bosnian girl (whom he had met in Seattle) with a very serene expression on her face. “Or you can look at this one”, he said with a chuckle as he turned around pointing in the opposite direction; “it is interesting but not very pretty.” He called the painting -“the obnoxious bird, the bird from down under”.
Continue reading The Eye of the Obnoxious Bird — by Dr. Mukta Panda
A requirement for my medical school was to participate in health teaching. I chose to provide an informal session on alcohol, sex and drugs for a small group of freshman girls, the next generation of diverse women. I find this subject so important, because the issues confronting teenagers are numerous and can create a significant generational gap between them and their parents. It’s not as simple as just staying clean and not having sex to avoid pregnancy. The reality is that most teenagers at some point will drink alcohol and take drugs and/or become sexually active.
Continue reading Teenage Girls and Sex Education – by Dr. Roslyn Gerwin