Another golden substack from Dr. Mc. You describe a holistic view of medicine which is so often needed in western culture. Thank you for sharing the deep thinking you do. The world and your patients are privileged for you to be able to share your perspective, instead of keeping it locked inside your mind. You have touched upon how a large chunk of our lived experiences are rooted in the stories we embody, and the importance in paying attention as observers of our 3D experience. Dare I say I feel a bit more enlightened after reading this substack?! "Namaste"
Hi Lisa! I'm happy that you found this worth reading, and I agree that so much of our lived experience is indeed constructed of stories... maybe our entire lives are just that. I really did wrestle with this post. A previous draft became too wonky on consciousness theory, and then the second was too preachy and cliched. The word count was even worse!
Most doctors are pretty good at the Western medicine approach, which is absolutely necessary and the basis for measurable improvements in health data... but as the "science" of consciousness becomes more robust, dovetailing with the emergence of artificial intelligence, it is going to be interesting to watch how Western medicine embraces the science of consciousness with humanism, or embraces it with even more data driven technical hacks.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Many of us with autoimmune diseases pay close attention to our body's messaging. When medical professionals discount our observations, we're forced to doctor ourselves. It's not always safe but neither is the constant medical gaslighting. In a perfect world, doctors would work synergistically with patient observations. Not many of the western medicine doctors I've seen are willing to do so past the first departure from textbook expectations, however.
Thank you for adding this Carol. Autoimmunity is really a special kind of internal wave to ride, with cross currents and messaging that can sometimes be harmful. You have me thinking about one specific example - when some patients with autoimmune conditions tell me about their reaction to certain vaccines. As you might know I am gung ho with vaccines, especially for people with immune system issues... but I hear some people when they say that for example the Covid or Shingles vaccine triggered a worsening of their autoimmune symptoms/illness, usually temporarily but sometimes chronically. The mechanisms are there, the conscious interoceptive feedback is there, so who the hell am I to stick dogmatically to my pro-vaccine ideology in those circumstances? We talk about risk/benefit, maybe/maybenot, and ultimately it is the person's decision.
I DO know your vax opinions and applaud them. And thank you for your personal approach with patients. I reluctantly, (because it seems fraught with political undertone), used the phrase "vaccine hesitant" with my doctor. Not because I doubt efficacy or necessity of vaccines but because I doubt my body's individual response to vaccines. I don't want public health policy to be ruled by exceptions. At the same time, it's nice to see exceptions considered and addressed by anyone in health care. After my decades of exposure to medical gaslighting, you are helping me rebuild respect for western medicine. Thank you.
T Allen, it's exhausting, isn't it. Try to spend the energy to find a health professional who is a good fit. I finally found a Primary Care Manager who is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN). I still have some non-western medicine in my tool box but am finding that it dovetails nicely with competent, open-minded, western care. But office visits are still frightening when you've been gaslit so much. Coming to believe there are MDs out there like Dr. Ryan McCormick has been a positive influence. When you feel like you're a healthcare war veteran though, it takes some time. Good luck.
I actually felt like I was being sent an angel with your message today.
This is how I described to my husband my need for an understanding from doctors about what I feel inside my body. No lab test is revealing the facts.
I have learned a tremendous amount about hearing and feeling and knowing my own self( body). I contacted “Lyme”40 years ago. Have added long covid after the J&J booster vaccine. No one can read my body better than I do. I actually see movement at the back of my brain concerning what I am going through…..last night tiny red dots mixed with tiny black dots and then smoke rising behind my eyes. If I told a PCP who has 15 minutes and a computer screen to focus on they would mark me off as 🤪.
The most successful treatment I received for Lyme diagnoses was 40 years ago by the doctor from heaven who was practicing healing as an art. He gave me gammamunne infusions . It allowed me to go back to my job for another 16 years.
I mentioned this about a month ago to another new medical person and was told “ if “ insurance covered it good .. but if not $50,000.00 .
In 1987 I paid nothing. My doctor knew how to be there, my company had given me 6 months off with half pay and my union supported my professionalism. This gammamunne did not cure me but it so helped that I was “less” sick than many who were bitten by altered (bio-warfare) ticks.
Today I walk around with deep depression, sadness, and fatigue. Have tried to find a doctor like the one out in Calif. in 1987. Even the Lyme specialists are waning off focus.
Am going to BioAdvanced clinic in Mexico. Stem cells give me back to myself for a time. But whatever is coursing through me now has taken myself away.
Your article says it to a t!
Thank you for at least letting me feel understood. It is a lonely lonely journey without one’s self.
You are an angel. Please know how important your understanding and intelligence is for all !!! I just hope America gets serious about fixing a very broken healthcare .
Aw, thank you so much Jean! This is such a kind comment and instructive personal story for all of us. I think that the mainstream acceptance of "Long Covid" really broke down some walls for doctors, showing us that there are multiple mechanisms behind one umbrella term for feeling qualitatively (and quantitively when we measure the hidden markers) worse than before the illness struck. With Long Covid we have endothelial damage, micro clotting, uncleared viral reservoirs, autoimmunity triggered, mitochondrial damage, serotonin depletion... and so forth, without one universal syndrome or combination of mechanisms. I suspect that chronic Lyme is long Lyme, with a heterogenous set of mechanisms and symptoms, too. And to make things even worse, nothing occurs in isolation! So while Lyme might be part of the equation, we have a million other inputs that are beneficial, neutral, and harmful to sort out. Instead of throwing our hands up, I think some acceptance, some intuitive self care that we know helps, exercise if we can, sleep if we can, all the clinched basics help us in the long run even as we try heroics or off label treatments... $50,000!! ugh.
Well anyway, I'm glad you feel seen/heard after reading this, even if it does not lead to a cure. When I personally feel understood or validated it is a precious gift from some lovely soul outside my own consciousness!
It is a tremendous load to carry to have “heard” another being as that “being” keeps wanting to talk then…. 😂
But, something else that may help others: my Father contracted polio when he was 6. Another story here. But my main objective today is to share the importance of vaccines as we have known them over my lifetime. As a first and second grader my siblings and I received all of the vaccines for polio , measles, mumps(?), whatever the schools were giving we got.
After college I taught English to 7-8-9th graders in Ca. During that time the Viet Nam war was starting to attract dissent and I marched with thousands in SFO against the war. While doing so , I realized I wanted to see the whole world. I was hired by Pan Am and spent 20 wonderful years circling the globe. One of our duties as an employee was to have our “shot card” up to date. If it was not, we were taken off the trip.
Because of this dedication to excellence and well being I flew illness free to all my destinations.
I have always believed in vaccines. My Father lost all the muscle in his left leg from the knee down. He had a substantial limp. He also had a substantial wit, talent for learning and a great ability to play music by ear. Piano, guitar, ukulele, harmonica. He loved cats and horses( they allowed him to dance). He demanded perfection and his top belief was to be well educated. Also to be kind.
My story could go on and on…. But the importance of it is that others learn from my experience.
My Father had the highest grade on the test for being accepted as a fish culturist with the Fed.and State Fish and Game. He ran the hatcheries and raised the fish from eggs. Because of this chosen career ( to be close to nature) we were raised our first 6 years in the woods. Hatcheries were quiet , singular existence. What we did become aware of were wood ticks. They hitchhiked on our small bodies often. Our Father was our savior. He plucked them off. Never did they make us sick, although they did make us woozy as they stuck to us! 😂
Having that background thoroughly engrained in my memory , when in 1987 I hiked in Prince William forest I discovered a tiny tick on my abdomen a day after the hike. I paid not a hoot to having taken it off without my Father’s help…. It took two years of simple occurrences ( pain here, issues there?????) to finally discover that now ticks were seriously deadly. Thanks to our government. 👽😱🌎
I did not think it possible, but you have just hit a new high in gorgeous, contemplative, yet thoroughly focused, thinking and writing. What a gift you are, in so many dimensions.
I so wish our medical system properly supported, both in time and resources, primary care providers, who are foundational to the provision of sound, holistic health care. Oh, the places we could go!
Many thanks for this Susan, I'm blushing here ;) As I wrote above after a different comment, this one was kind of mind bending, and I'm glad I did not hit send on the first couple versions. I thank you for your wish that the system better supported primary care. The present and looming shortages are staggering, and I don't think AI primary care bots, or a surge of midlevel providers heavily referring people to specialists will even come close to making the system work. A patient of mine told me yesterday that my next open appointment is already in July! Awful, and I try to change that but I do not control the dice. We have 9 other docs in our office, and an urgent care network that handles the overflow... but good lord.
“… this one was kind of mind bending.” Thank you, Ryan, it seems quite a few of us enjoy having our minds bent. I’ve read your message today twice and I’ll be coming back to it again. These words especially struck me: “That small gap between experience and the awareness of experience” - wow, I want to have more of that awareness.
In 1989 my doctor asked me how I was doing and my response was that I just felt “off”. I had specific lower abdominal pain about six months prior but it abated, but now, at the annual physical, “off” fit. He prescribed an ultrasound just because he wanted to be sure. The ovarian cysts they found and removed two weeks later turned out to be ovarian cancer, diagnosed during the surgery by the path lab. I am still here because Dr. Thomas listened to what I could not say in words. Your words in this article mean more to me than I can ever tell you. Thank you for seeing the Truth in what we know but cannot say.
Wow, that is really an amazing testimony to the interoceptive sense of consciousness you felt when describing something being "off." I've learned over the years to respect this statement from patients... especially older patients with higher risks of real pathology, but anyone really. I am so happy that you are here to tell the tale! Congratulations to YOU and Dr. Thomas.
My GP of over 35 years recently retired. I've seen my new GP twice thus far. It's going to take time for us to become familiar with each other, and I realize how pressed for time she is. That being said, I miss the long years of treatment from my old doc, who knew my body well. When you hit senior status, there is much "wrong" with you, and it's difficult to know what is "you're old this is part of the deal" wrong, and "this needs to be pursued" wrong. I sometimes fear presenting as a hypochondriac!
I've recently discovered a book I am finding very helpful: "Honest Aging: An Insider's Guide to the Second Half of Life" by Dr Rosanne M. Leipzig. I recommend anyone over 50 purchasing it.
Hi Miselle - that kind of handbook sounds really useful. I will check it out one of these days soon, thank you! And you are absolutely correct. Reassurance and gaslighting older people's complaints is on a fine line with being an alarmist and pursuing every normal ache and pain an older person feels on a daily basis. Those long term relationships we develop with our bodies, and the long term relationships with our doctors can really help distill the symptoms. I wish you well with the new GP! Sometimes a fresh set of eyes, ears, brain and consciousness looking at you can be crucial!
I did not know about Michael Pollan's new book! I have put a hold on it at the library. As someone with health anxiety arising from childhood events, I find your framing quite spot on. I've done a lot of work with my nervous system states the past few years, and being able to see myself even a little brings me back to a settled state without self-berating, able to assess my situation more clearly. I find little support for that in the clinical setting; I have to handle it on my own before, during and after medical care.
Hi Peg, I completely agree with your comment here. The hard work of rebalancing the yin/yang parasympathetic/sympathetic hope/fear within all of us is something that takes a lot of time, patience, and practice... all of which are in rare supply during office visits! Overcoming or at least harnessing health anxiety into something functional is so difficult yet makes such a major difference in quality of life. Here's to your compassion with self, hard earned and well deserved :)
This treats both patients and doctors with compassion and respect, and both need it these days, so thank you for that.
Back in my practice days, I used a "strategy" of a few deep breaths and an attempt to clear my mind before entering the room with a patient. A "reset" of sorts, to bring me into that moment. Making even a little space for listening with respect was always invaluable, albeit not always easy. Asking the patient (never got into calling them clients) how THEY understood what was going on with them, what they thought and what they feared, gave me a window into their experience. And surprisingly, didn't take as much time as I feared it would. But, alas, the treadmill runs faster these days.
Thanks for this Leslie, I see much of my own practice within your comment, too. That reset in between patients is critical, and often the tyranny of the clock prevents a proper review of their chart, much less a proper smoothing of one's own jagged stressed out edges before diving into the room. And yes, "clients" is creepy. Even "patients" can be off putting at times, though necessary framing! You obviously get it!
Beautiful as always. The fact that you, with so little time, can still find the energy and inspiration to write with such breadth and depth, clarity, honesty and compassion is all the evidence I need of the mysterious power of consciousness.
Aw, this is so lovely Gemma, I'm writing this reply to you with a big goofy smile on my face. Thank you for making my day. You have willed your naturally wonderful self through so much, and your presence in the world shines brightly and beneficently for so many. Thank you for being.
This was beautifully written, informative and inspirational. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, I was fortunate enough to find my way to a Chinese acupuncturist who embodied what you describe here. I made the tea from the herbs he prescribed and saw him weekly for acupuncture for about a year. Every time I saw him, or even thought of him, my spirit and energy were buoyed. He saw me. More than the treatments or the herbs, just being in his presence gave me energy and hope. You remind me of him in your humanity, wisdom and compassion.
Hi Gina, thank you for sharing this. I am picturing a wonderful communion of spirits here. It really drives home the idea of having skilled technicians/experts treat the cancer with the best available science, while investing in the care of consciousness and the spirit of the person enduring the hardships. We physicians kind of assume people want the science from us, and that is the easiest to deliver. Thank you for reminding me to inquire about and actively support parallel efforts to ensure people find boosts for their psychic energy and hope - family, friends, compassion for self, and presence with other trusted, caring humans.
As someone with end stage cancer who has many friends with everything from cancer and stroke recovery to autoimmune diseases to permanent spinal damage, all of whom have had their frustrations with the medical establishment, this is the most important take on the subject I've read. I tend to share your writing frequently but think this piece might actually change some lives.
Just a suggestion: at some future date you might compile your essays and publish a book.
Merry, thank you so much, that is so incredibly kind of you, especially given your situation. I hope this resonates with those folks, too. Like with anything done routinely, day after day, especially when one sees the suffering all around... it is almost natural, adaptive even to reduce your humanity and start depersonalizing the practice of medicine. Patients feel that all the time. Doctors feel it, too. Kind of like moral injury.
But rediscovering the primacy of consciousness, the mutually experienced phenomena of joy and pain and pleasure and devastation and happiness and all the rest the informs the medical state of the being in front of us... it has already nudged me to recommit to to being a better presence with people in the examining room. I'm rambling, just know I appreciate you, and maybe I'll get that book done one of these days... if only to say "I was here."
Another golden substack from Dr. Mc. You describe a holistic view of medicine which is so often needed in western culture. Thank you for sharing the deep thinking you do. The world and your patients are privileged for you to be able to share your perspective, instead of keeping it locked inside your mind. You have touched upon how a large chunk of our lived experiences are rooted in the stories we embody, and the importance in paying attention as observers of our 3D experience. Dare I say I feel a bit more enlightened after reading this substack?! "Namaste"
Hi Lisa! I'm happy that you found this worth reading, and I agree that so much of our lived experience is indeed constructed of stories... maybe our entire lives are just that. I really did wrestle with this post. A previous draft became too wonky on consciousness theory, and then the second was too preachy and cliched. The word count was even worse!
Most doctors are pretty good at the Western medicine approach, which is absolutely necessary and the basis for measurable improvements in health data... but as the "science" of consciousness becomes more robust, dovetailing with the emergence of artificial intelligence, it is going to be interesting to watch how Western medicine embraces the science of consciousness with humanism, or embraces it with even more data driven technical hacks.
Namaste!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Many of us with autoimmune diseases pay close attention to our body's messaging. When medical professionals discount our observations, we're forced to doctor ourselves. It's not always safe but neither is the constant medical gaslighting. In a perfect world, doctors would work synergistically with patient observations. Not many of the western medicine doctors I've seen are willing to do so past the first departure from textbook expectations, however.
Thank you for adding this Carol. Autoimmunity is really a special kind of internal wave to ride, with cross currents and messaging that can sometimes be harmful. You have me thinking about one specific example - when some patients with autoimmune conditions tell me about their reaction to certain vaccines. As you might know I am gung ho with vaccines, especially for people with immune system issues... but I hear some people when they say that for example the Covid or Shingles vaccine triggered a worsening of their autoimmune symptoms/illness, usually temporarily but sometimes chronically. The mechanisms are there, the conscious interoceptive feedback is there, so who the hell am I to stick dogmatically to my pro-vaccine ideology in those circumstances? We talk about risk/benefit, maybe/maybenot, and ultimately it is the person's decision.
I DO know your vax opinions and applaud them. And thank you for your personal approach with patients. I reluctantly, (because it seems fraught with political undertone), used the phrase "vaccine hesitant" with my doctor. Not because I doubt efficacy or necessity of vaccines but because I doubt my body's individual response to vaccines. I don't want public health policy to be ruled by exceptions. At the same time, it's nice to see exceptions considered and addressed by anyone in health care. After my decades of exposure to medical gaslighting, you are helping me rebuild respect for western medicine. Thank you.
I'm glad you are regaining respect for western medicine. I still have a long way to go. :-(
T Allen, it's exhausting, isn't it. Try to spend the energy to find a health professional who is a good fit. I finally found a Primary Care Manager who is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN). I still have some non-western medicine in my tool box but am finding that it dovetails nicely with competent, open-minded, western care. But office visits are still frightening when you've been gaslit so much. Coming to believe there are MDs out there like Dr. Ryan McCormick has been a positive influence. When you feel like you're a healthcare war veteran though, it takes some time. Good luck.
I actually felt like I was being sent an angel with your message today.
This is how I described to my husband my need for an understanding from doctors about what I feel inside my body. No lab test is revealing the facts.
I have learned a tremendous amount about hearing and feeling and knowing my own self( body). I contacted “Lyme”40 years ago. Have added long covid after the J&J booster vaccine. No one can read my body better than I do. I actually see movement at the back of my brain concerning what I am going through…..last night tiny red dots mixed with tiny black dots and then smoke rising behind my eyes. If I told a PCP who has 15 minutes and a computer screen to focus on they would mark me off as 🤪.
The most successful treatment I received for Lyme diagnoses was 40 years ago by the doctor from heaven who was practicing healing as an art. He gave me gammamunne infusions . It allowed me to go back to my job for another 16 years.
I mentioned this about a month ago to another new medical person and was told “ if “ insurance covered it good .. but if not $50,000.00 .
In 1987 I paid nothing. My doctor knew how to be there, my company had given me 6 months off with half pay and my union supported my professionalism. This gammamunne did not cure me but it so helped that I was “less” sick than many who were bitten by altered (bio-warfare) ticks.
Today I walk around with deep depression, sadness, and fatigue. Have tried to find a doctor like the one out in Calif. in 1987. Even the Lyme specialists are waning off focus.
Am going to BioAdvanced clinic in Mexico. Stem cells give me back to myself for a time. But whatever is coursing through me now has taken myself away.
Your article says it to a t!
Thank you for at least letting me feel understood. It is a lonely lonely journey without one’s self.
You are an angel. Please know how important your understanding and intelligence is for all !!! I just hope America gets serious about fixing a very broken healthcare .
Aw, thank you so much Jean! This is such a kind comment and instructive personal story for all of us. I think that the mainstream acceptance of "Long Covid" really broke down some walls for doctors, showing us that there are multiple mechanisms behind one umbrella term for feeling qualitatively (and quantitively when we measure the hidden markers) worse than before the illness struck. With Long Covid we have endothelial damage, micro clotting, uncleared viral reservoirs, autoimmunity triggered, mitochondrial damage, serotonin depletion... and so forth, without one universal syndrome or combination of mechanisms. I suspect that chronic Lyme is long Lyme, with a heterogenous set of mechanisms and symptoms, too. And to make things even worse, nothing occurs in isolation! So while Lyme might be part of the equation, we have a million other inputs that are beneficial, neutral, and harmful to sort out. Instead of throwing our hands up, I think some acceptance, some intuitive self care that we know helps, exercise if we can, sleep if we can, all the clinched basics help us in the long run even as we try heroics or off label treatments... $50,000!! ugh.
Well anyway, I'm glad you feel seen/heard after reading this, even if it does not lead to a cure. When I personally feel understood or validated it is a precious gift from some lovely soul outside my own consciousness!
It is a tremendous load to carry to have “heard” another being as that “being” keeps wanting to talk then…. 😂
But, something else that may help others: my Father contracted polio when he was 6. Another story here. But my main objective today is to share the importance of vaccines as we have known them over my lifetime. As a first and second grader my siblings and I received all of the vaccines for polio , measles, mumps(?), whatever the schools were giving we got.
After college I taught English to 7-8-9th graders in Ca. During that time the Viet Nam war was starting to attract dissent and I marched with thousands in SFO against the war. While doing so , I realized I wanted to see the whole world. I was hired by Pan Am and spent 20 wonderful years circling the globe. One of our duties as an employee was to have our “shot card” up to date. If it was not, we were taken off the trip.
Because of this dedication to excellence and well being I flew illness free to all my destinations.
I have always believed in vaccines. My Father lost all the muscle in his left leg from the knee down. He had a substantial limp. He also had a substantial wit, talent for learning and a great ability to play music by ear. Piano, guitar, ukulele, harmonica. He loved cats and horses( they allowed him to dance). He demanded perfection and his top belief was to be well educated. Also to be kind.
My story could go on and on…. But the importance of it is that others learn from my experience.
My Father had the highest grade on the test for being accepted as a fish culturist with the Fed.and State Fish and Game. He ran the hatcheries and raised the fish from eggs. Because of this chosen career ( to be close to nature) we were raised our first 6 years in the woods. Hatcheries were quiet , singular existence. What we did become aware of were wood ticks. They hitchhiked on our small bodies often. Our Father was our savior. He plucked them off. Never did they make us sick, although they did make us woozy as they stuck to us! 😂
Having that background thoroughly engrained in my memory , when in 1987 I hiked in Prince William forest I discovered a tiny tick on my abdomen a day after the hike. I paid not a hoot to having taken it off without my Father’s help…. It took two years of simple occurrences ( pain here, issues there?????) to finally discover that now ticks were seriously deadly. Thanks to our government. 👽😱🌎
I did not think it possible, but you have just hit a new high in gorgeous, contemplative, yet thoroughly focused, thinking and writing. What a gift you are, in so many dimensions.
I so wish our medical system properly supported, both in time and resources, primary care providers, who are foundational to the provision of sound, holistic health care. Oh, the places we could go!
Thank you, Ryan, for all you do and all you are.
Many thanks for this Susan, I'm blushing here ;) As I wrote above after a different comment, this one was kind of mind bending, and I'm glad I did not hit send on the first couple versions. I thank you for your wish that the system better supported primary care. The present and looming shortages are staggering, and I don't think AI primary care bots, or a surge of midlevel providers heavily referring people to specialists will even come close to making the system work. A patient of mine told me yesterday that my next open appointment is already in July! Awful, and I try to change that but I do not control the dice. We have 9 other docs in our office, and an urgent care network that handles the overflow... but good lord.
Thank you so much again, Susan!
“… this one was kind of mind bending.” Thank you, Ryan, it seems quite a few of us enjoy having our minds bent. I’ve read your message today twice and I’ll be coming back to it again. These words especially struck me: “That small gap between experience and the awareness of experience” - wow, I want to have more of that awareness.
*You* are luminous. Thx once again! Breathtakingly useful.
Thank you for dedicating your life work to all the consciousness-meeting meetings with your patients!
In 1989 my doctor asked me how I was doing and my response was that I just felt “off”. I had specific lower abdominal pain about six months prior but it abated, but now, at the annual physical, “off” fit. He prescribed an ultrasound just because he wanted to be sure. The ovarian cysts they found and removed two weeks later turned out to be ovarian cancer, diagnosed during the surgery by the path lab. I am still here because Dr. Thomas listened to what I could not say in words. Your words in this article mean more to me than I can ever tell you. Thank you for seeing the Truth in what we know but cannot say.
Wow, that is really an amazing testimony to the interoceptive sense of consciousness you felt when describing something being "off." I've learned over the years to respect this statement from patients... especially older patients with higher risks of real pathology, but anyone really. I am so happy that you are here to tell the tale! Congratulations to YOU and Dr. Thomas.
Thank you, as always, Doc Ryan.
My GP of over 35 years recently retired. I've seen my new GP twice thus far. It's going to take time for us to become familiar with each other, and I realize how pressed for time she is. That being said, I miss the long years of treatment from my old doc, who knew my body well. When you hit senior status, there is much "wrong" with you, and it's difficult to know what is "you're old this is part of the deal" wrong, and "this needs to be pursued" wrong. I sometimes fear presenting as a hypochondriac!
I've recently discovered a book I am finding very helpful: "Honest Aging: An Insider's Guide to the Second Half of Life" by Dr Rosanne M. Leipzig. I recommend anyone over 50 purchasing it.
Hi Miselle - that kind of handbook sounds really useful. I will check it out one of these days soon, thank you! And you are absolutely correct. Reassurance and gaslighting older people's complaints is on a fine line with being an alarmist and pursuing every normal ache and pain an older person feels on a daily basis. Those long term relationships we develop with our bodies, and the long term relationships with our doctors can really help distill the symptoms. I wish you well with the new GP! Sometimes a fresh set of eyes, ears, brain and consciousness looking at you can be crucial!
I did not know about Michael Pollan's new book! I have put a hold on it at the library. As someone with health anxiety arising from childhood events, I find your framing quite spot on. I've done a lot of work with my nervous system states the past few years, and being able to see myself even a little brings me back to a settled state without self-berating, able to assess my situation more clearly. I find little support for that in the clinical setting; I have to handle it on my own before, during and after medical care.
Hi Peg, I completely agree with your comment here. The hard work of rebalancing the yin/yang parasympathetic/sympathetic hope/fear within all of us is something that takes a lot of time, patience, and practice... all of which are in rare supply during office visits! Overcoming or at least harnessing health anxiety into something functional is so difficult yet makes such a major difference in quality of life. Here's to your compassion with self, hard earned and well deserved :)
This treats both patients and doctors with compassion and respect, and both need it these days, so thank you for that.
Back in my practice days, I used a "strategy" of a few deep breaths and an attempt to clear my mind before entering the room with a patient. A "reset" of sorts, to bring me into that moment. Making even a little space for listening with respect was always invaluable, albeit not always easy. Asking the patient (never got into calling them clients) how THEY understood what was going on with them, what they thought and what they feared, gave me a window into their experience. And surprisingly, didn't take as much time as I feared it would. But, alas, the treadmill runs faster these days.
Thanks for this Leslie, I see much of my own practice within your comment, too. That reset in between patients is critical, and often the tyranny of the clock prevents a proper review of their chart, much less a proper smoothing of one's own jagged stressed out edges before diving into the room. And yes, "clients" is creepy. Even "patients" can be off putting at times, though necessary framing! You obviously get it!
Beautiful as always. The fact that you, with so little time, can still find the energy and inspiration to write with such breadth and depth, clarity, honesty and compassion is all the evidence I need of the mysterious power of consciousness.
There's still magic in the air. 😊❤️
Aw, this is so lovely Gemma, I'm writing this reply to you with a big goofy smile on my face. Thank you for making my day. You have willed your naturally wonderful self through so much, and your presence in the world shines brightly and beneficently for so many. Thank you for being.
This was beautifully written, informative and inspirational. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, I was fortunate enough to find my way to a Chinese acupuncturist who embodied what you describe here. I made the tea from the herbs he prescribed and saw him weekly for acupuncture for about a year. Every time I saw him, or even thought of him, my spirit and energy were buoyed. He saw me. More than the treatments or the herbs, just being in his presence gave me energy and hope. You remind me of him in your humanity, wisdom and compassion.
Hi Gina, thank you for sharing this. I am picturing a wonderful communion of spirits here. It really drives home the idea of having skilled technicians/experts treat the cancer with the best available science, while investing in the care of consciousness and the spirit of the person enduring the hardships. We physicians kind of assume people want the science from us, and that is the easiest to deliver. Thank you for reminding me to inquire about and actively support parallel efforts to ensure people find boosts for their psychic energy and hope - family, friends, compassion for self, and presence with other trusted, caring humans.
Yes, this acupuncture was a complement to a skilled surgeon and successful chemotherapy.
As someone with end stage cancer who has many friends with everything from cancer and stroke recovery to autoimmune diseases to permanent spinal damage, all of whom have had their frustrations with the medical establishment, this is the most important take on the subject I've read. I tend to share your writing frequently but think this piece might actually change some lives.
Just a suggestion: at some future date you might compile your essays and publish a book.
Merry, thank you so much, that is so incredibly kind of you, especially given your situation. I hope this resonates with those folks, too. Like with anything done routinely, day after day, especially when one sees the suffering all around... it is almost natural, adaptive even to reduce your humanity and start depersonalizing the practice of medicine. Patients feel that all the time. Doctors feel it, too. Kind of like moral injury.
But rediscovering the primacy of consciousness, the mutually experienced phenomena of joy and pain and pleasure and devastation and happiness and all the rest the informs the medical state of the being in front of us... it has already nudged me to recommit to to being a better presence with people in the examining room. I'm rambling, just know I appreciate you, and maybe I'll get that book done one of these days... if only to say "I was here."