Health Archives - The Happy Philosopher

Adventures in Burnout: One Physician’s Story

The Happy Philosopher — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 17:24:32 +0000

[Editor’s note: I’m excited to share a guest post with you today from a virtual friend of mine, Vagabond MD. The author is a recovering private practice interventional radiologist (20+ years), a regular reader of my blog, an occasional guest blogger on various physician sites, and a prolific contributor on the White Coat Investor forum …

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An Essay on Gender Roles

The Happy Philosopher — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 05:30:04 +0000

Most of us fall into the category of either male, or female. I know there are other variants and there is a difference between our chromosomal sex (XX or XY, although again, there are others), our gender identity (how we think of ourselves), and our gender appearance (how we look to others, usually defined by …

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Death of a Colleague

The Happy Philosopher — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 21:17:53 +0000

Recently a physician I know died suddenly, at home. He was young, certainly young enough for his death to be surprising. Shortly after this news filtered to me via the grapevine, a brief email from hospital administration arrived in my inbox. It was light on details, vaguely written, asked for thoughts and prayers. You know, …

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Hitting the Reset Button

The Happy Philosopher — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 16:44:57 +0000

You may have noticed I have not published much on the blog recently. Truth be told, I am in a bit of a funk right now. I don’t feel particularly creative, and although I have plenty of time to write, I find myself wasting time on other things. I have let many bad habits creep …

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Reflections on Pain: Part 2

The Happy Philosopher — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 20:08:04 +0000

Pain I just finished a stretch of three months of full-time work due to my partners’ maternity leave. It was a tough transition to be honest, but I adjusted to the busier life within a few weeks. The worst part about it though, was about half way through I tweaked my back which is still …

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The Power of Eating Together

The Happy Philosopher — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 15:57:08 +0000

Eating I’ve discussed eating before in a previous blog post. It was about changing my diet and experimenting with what made my body feel good. There are other important aspects of eating though. Food is not just physical nourishment, but psychologic nourishment as well. Eating a meal has a social, communal and deeply spiritual …

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Social Media is Clutter

The Happy Philosopher — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 05:03:57 +0000

Clutter Clutter is everywhere in our lives, and getting rid of it increases our happiness. This is the third post in a loose collection of articles on decluttering. First I discussed my experiences with and benefits of what we all think of when we hear the word clutter: getting rid of actual physical possessions. Next …

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A Day of Running

The Happy Philosopher — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 22:02:08 +0000

I have a love hate relationship with running. If we were a Facebook couple it would be “its complicated”. As you may know I’ve tried to compete at a relatively high level of racing without actually doing much training. This worked up to a point…right up until it didn’t. I tried to train for a …

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How Not to Train for a Half-Marathon

The Happy Philosopher — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 05:32:28 +0000

I’m a big fan of efficiency and getting the biggest bang for the buck. A fancier way to phrase this is I like to apply the Pareto principal to my life. In general, the smartest 20% of the effort results in 80% of the gains. If you apply this to all areas of your …

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Burnout is Not Bullshit

The Happy Philosopher — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 17:23:33 +0000

Recently I’ve been stumbling across more and more articles about physician burnout. It is a trendy term to use these days and I think a pretty darn good one. It was first used in the field of psychology in 1974 by Herbert Freudenberger, and the meaning has evolved over time. Social psychologists Christina Maslach and …

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