You've heard the song lyrics. "He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake."
 Every holiday season comes with lists.
The naughty list. The nice list. The grocery list.Â
And for physicians? The most exhausting one of...
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Lately I’ve been living in two completely different professional worlds.
One is the world of building our comprehensive heart center. I have been in my division director roles for 5 months. The heart center work started years ago. Years of planning, committees, approvals, budgets, and meets.
I...
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It has been a long holiday weekend. We were buried under ten inches of snow, I’m 20 hours away from finishing a seven-day stretch of call that included the holiday, and somehow I still managed to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table. The kind of stretch where your brain feels like it has too m...
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When you pause and feel grateful in the middle of a hard day, something real happens. Your nervous system settles. Your chest loosens. You feel a little less alone. That short-term effect matters.
But I want more for you than momentary relief.
Long-term gratitude practice, the kind you repeat,...
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Last week, I touch on the science of gratitude. (Explore more deeply in this blog).  Practicing gratitude literally reshapes your brain and lowers stress. This week, we’re putting that science into practice.
Gratitude is often misunderstood as a soft emotion, but in truth, it’s one of the most...
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When I first started exploring gratitude, I wasn’t looking for inspiration, I was looking for evidence. Like many physicians, I was tired, skeptical, and searching for something that actually worked. Gratitude, I thought, sounded nice in theory, but how could it possibly make a difference when...
Why Fear Might Be Your Best Compass
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It Starts Early
Plug in a night light if you’re scared of the dark.
Run away.
Cover your eyes during the scary part of the movie.
If you admit to fear, you’re called a chicken or a scaredy-cat.
As children, we’re taught to ignore fear, to push it away, and n...
I almost missed it.
On a walk through the yard, I noticed several deep red blooms on our climbing rose alongside a few new buds. It’s a robust grower, reliable all summer. I celebrate the first bloom of spring, but as the months roll on, I stop noticing them as much. That deep red bloom in mid-O...
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I was obsessed with Fat Bear Week. Chunk, picture below, was the 1200 lb 2025 champion.
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If you're not familiar with it, there's a wildlife camera positioned at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska, that films brown bears feasting on salmon during their summer run. What started as a l...
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Are We Even Hearing Each Other Anymore?
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If it feels like we’re all talking past each other lately, you’re not imagining it.
We live in a polarized time, and communication feels next to impossible.
In healthcare, the challenge is amplified: high stakes, constant interruptions, and everyone op...
I had two very different experiences this week that got me thinking about something we all struggle with but rarely name: the invisible barriers we construct in our own lives.
Experience 1: The Resource Allocation Meeting
I sat through yet another meeting about resource allocation. We desperately...
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Does the world feel like it’s shifting beneath your feet lately?
As physicians, we’re no strangers to uncertainty. We’ve stood at the bedside weighing imperfect options, guided by training and instinct when protocols fall short.
But here’s the paradox: the same skills that help us thrive i...
