Prescription Medicine

A lot of people have emailed me wondering if I will still be writing The View, will I be writing something else, what happened, what am I doing, etc.. And since the ratio of people who think about asking or doing something compared to those who actually ask is somewhere around 11:1, I thought I would write one more post to help those of you who are wondering but not asking.

I decided to stop writing The View because about six months ago, I stopped seeing clients in Sports Center. It was time to pass the torch and let them fly (I am world famous for mixing metaphors and I think I did a really good job with that one). I felt it was important to keep the content authentic and fresh and if I couldn't do that then I would stop writing it.

I am doing quite well and am working on several projects. You can find one of them here (you probably know by now that I won't tell you EVERYTHING. Where's the fun in that?).

If you enjoyed The View and my writing style, you can catch me at Heartstrings. It's a new "blog for the creative hearts." I'll be writing about writing, music, books, life - stuff that makes me feel alive, happy, and may make you feel that way too.

Onward.....
Doug Kelsey

By Brad Bahr

Stress is a normal and necessary response to life changes. It is something that everyone experiences as part of his or her everyday life. To better give you an understanding of the role that stress plays in life is to remember that stress is a perception. It only becomes a problem when it causes physical, emotional and psychological reactions that do not go away. When your stressors are channeled properly stress is actually what can lead you to your best outcome however when not channeled properly these same stressors can wreak havoc on your life. There are some ways to reduce the impact that stress has on your health and emotional well -being and to manage your stress to remain at a healthy level. Some natural or holistic approaches to stress management involve expressive therapies. Art therapy is one such method.

Art therapy in a clinical setting combines development, visual art, and the creative process with models of counseling and psychotherapy. An art therapist will most likely have you create something that expresses the feelings that you are having at the particular time. They will encourage you to discuss what your creation means. Art therapy can work in any medium and is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic expression can help people to develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, help to resolve conflict or problems, increase self esteem and self awareness, achieve insight and in turn these will help to reduce stress and goes a long way toward stress management. Art therapists are skilled in the application of several different modes of art including drawing, painting, sculpting, along with other media for assessment and treatment. While art therapy is its own field and therapists are master’s level professionals it is something that you can practice on your own, whenever and wherever you feel the need.

Many find that using art therapy is both cathartic and inspirational. Whether it is painting, drawing or some other method creating art can help you to manage or relieve stress in more ways than one. During the creative process you can take your mind of what it is that is stressing you, being in the moment and the flow of the art is very engaging and can bring you to an almost meditative state. The finished product is rewarding since it is something that you created. Having a hobby or something that you do for yourself can go along way toward bringing a sense of balance to your life and help with stress management. Often just putting your problems out there on paper, as a clay model or whatever making them external makes them easier to deal with and you have the emotional satisfaction of having created something that is all your own. Art is a window into human emotion, thought, expression and personality. Too much stress can cause you to lose touch with your true thoughts and feelings and artistic expression can help you to get them back. Art is a way of healing.

About the author: Brad Bahr is the editor of many health related websites and publications. He has been testing and reviewing nutritional supplements for over 20 years. After trying hundreds of products, he recommends one supplement above all others for renewing health and energy: Learn More

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Some people believe you can transform into something else, like an animal, a vampire or a mermaid. It's called shape shifting. I don't believe in shape shifting. It seems as likely as the Pope marrying.

But I do believe in emotional shape shifting. I've experienced it. It's real.

Emotional shape shifting almost always happens after you injure yourself. It seems as if you lose something, a part of your logical, rational, reasonable self gets swallowed up by something unknown and mysterious swimming around in your brain, smiling, licking its lips looking for a logical thought to devour like a hungry eel on the prowl. You make silly decisions like walking around all weekend at a local mall with a painful, swollen knee then wonder why your knee still hurts.  Or, if you're like me, you try a short jog around the neighborhood with a stress fracture in your spine. Yeah. I actually did that.

It doesn't matter what type of injury you have or, who you are or, what you know. At anytime of any day, an otherwise bright person with great common sense shape shifts into a dullard like a werewolf on a full moon. I know. I have lost many good, logical, rational thoughts to the hungry, illogical beast and then find myself spending several days in the hurt locker nursing my wounds.

Knowledge helps but without acceptance, you're doomed. While I was jogging around the neighborhood with my dandy little spine fracture, I willfully disregarded the truth. Why? It was too painful to accept. If I accepted the truth about the injury, I had to give up certain things like basketball and jogging and working out. I would have to limit how much I could sit, traveling would only be to and from work, and it would be several months before I could really be very active at all. I knew these things. I teach these things. But, decisions are made from the heart; not the head. You choose based on emotions then justify with logic.

To control emotional shape shifting, you must do two things: conduct an intellectually honest review of the facts and accept those facts. Reviewing the facts is easy. Accepting them is not.

The facts in my situation were that I had a fracture of my spine, it takes about six to eight weeks for bone to heal, and in the mean time, I would have to stop those activities that made the pain worse. Well, I didn't accept the facts for several years. I fought them; tried to bully my way through or around them. Eventually, the truth won. It usually does. I found that my resistance to accepting the facts was rooted in feeling like I was quitting, giving up, or saying goodbye to some part of my life. But, by accepting the truth, I wasn't quitting or giving up, or saying goodbye. I was just at the starting line.

I know many of you have experienced emotional shape shifting in one way or another and I hope that you can face the truth, accept it and arrive at the starting line of the next phase of your life.

The Next Phase
Last week I mentioned that this would be my last post for The View from Sports Center. The site will continue serving as a resource for people with injuries or over coming a surgery. We have over three hundred articles covering a wide range of topics that people from all over the world discover each day.

And, what will I be doing? Well, good question. I retired from the world of clinical practice and am beginning something else. It's not entirely clear yet and for now, that seems ok. You can catch me at http://www.heartstringsaustin.com - a new "blog for the creative hearts." I'll be writing about writing, music, books, life - stuff that makes me feel alive, happy, and may make you feel that way too.

Cheers and remember....make today count.

A bunch of people bit my head off on my A Better Way To Round post, assuming that I was ignoring patient communication. Idiot Savant’s comment pretty much sums it up–the point I was making was that because we spend so much needless time rounding, we often lack time for patients, in terms of communicating properly, frequently, and promptly, updating them and them families, doing procedures, etc.

I want to improve rounding so that we medical students, interns, residents, fellows, and attendings have more time for more important stuff than collecting numbers from a computer screen and copying them down multiple times. (Each person in the above list spends at the very, very least one hour doing this. Every. Day.)

Other ideas for improving patient care and communication:

• A little notebook and pen for every inpatient. They write down their questions, and when we stop by we answer them. Easy.
• For the less acute patients who are needing to reach some goal before discharge (I’m particularly thinking about fluid-retaining CHF patients who need to diurese but go to the cafeteria way too often): A calendar where they can list their daily weights, to motivate them. This could be applied to other patient populations as well.

I miss hearing people’s reactions to my posts! So from now on, comments are on by default (but will generally be off for some certain topics that turn low-quality and low-yield quickly–I think we can all name said topics ourselves).