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As an adolescent, says James R. Doty, MD, he was heading down a road toward delinquency. He says his family was poor, and he was often hungry.
His father was an alcoholic, his mother had debilitating depression, and he was so reflexive that, after a nun at his Roman Catholic school slapped him, he slapped her back. But a random decision to browse a magic shop changed the way Dr. Doty was able to imagine his life.
The magic shop owner’s mother, Ruth, taught him about focusing on the present moment – rather than dwelling on past traumas. “What she taught me truly rewired my brain,” he says in an interview with Krista Tippett. “When I met her, I had little to no possibilities. Yet, my own personal circumstances did not change at all.”
“There was a study that was done that showed that the average person, almost 80% of the time, they’re not focused on the present, they’re focused on exactly that: regret about the past or anxiety about the future. When your attention is in those places, you can’t give your full attention to even what’s happening to you at that moment,” Dr. Doty says in the interview with Ms. Tippett for “On Being,” a radio conversation and podcast available online and in some NPR markets. [Distracted attention] “limits what you can accomplish in that moment. Unfortunately, it’s a horrible distraction, and it, again, limits us to the connections we are able to make and actually even who we are.”
Dr. Doty’s life so far has taught him that pain can be harnessed to enrich life.
“Most of us have a tendency to desire pleasure rather than pain. ... I think anyone who has lived a life, which means you have had pain and suffering – is that And it’s part of a meaningful life. When you’re able to take that pain and suffering and use it to not hide from the world, to use it not to be afraid of every interaction, but to use it to say, yes, it is hard sometimes, but I have learned so many lessons and have become more appreciative and have more gratitude and see in so many examples how in the face of the greatest adversity, people have shown their greatest humanity,” he says.
An important part of his journey of discovery has been the beneficial role that meditation can have on the body.
“In fact, even after brief periods of meditation, we actually can study the epigenetic effect of how our genes are changing their expression, even with brief periods of meditation, in the context of inflammation markers,” says Dr. Doty, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford (Calif.) University, and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. “It’s extraordinary, because even with people who have meditated in this manner for as little as 2 weeks, you can see effects in regard to their blood pressure, in regard to the release of stress hormones and effects on the immune system.”
Dr. Doty is author of “Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart,” (New York: Penguin, 2016), and senior editor of the Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science.
Rx: Go visit an art exhibit
An innovative medical initiative has some Montreal physicians writing prescriptions for patients that, instead of leading them to the pharmacy, takes them to a local art museum.
Médecins francophones du Canada, a doctors’ organization based mainly in the province of Quebec, has partnered with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) in providing free museum passes to patients.
Physician members of Médecins francophones du Canada can be approved to issue up to 50 prescriptions for a visit to MMFA collections and exhibitions. This is meant to complement existing and more traditional treatment.
The intent, according to the museum’s chief curator and director general, Nathalie Bondil, is to provide a “relaxing, revitalizing experience, a moment of respite” for those burdened physically or mentally by illness. “We can open new doors, not just for the patients, but also for the doctors,” she remarks in an interview with BBC News.
Patients also can avail themselves of the museum’s art therapy programs. “The neutral, beautiful, inspiring space” of museums like MMFA helps improve a patient’s mood and well-being,” Ms. Bondil says. Contemplating a painting or other artwork can, at least temporarily, take the patient to a mental space not dominated by illness-related worry, fear, anger, and sadness.
The idea of art as medicine is echoed elsewhere. A 2017 report in the United Kingdom recognized the vital contribution of the arts to health and well-being.
Lady Gaga describes health crisis
From a distance, the life of Lady Gaga might seem exotic and desirable. But the musician and actress recently revealed her own “mental health crisis” – and urged Hollywood to make better mental health care available to those in the entertainment business.
Her work also features multiple deadlines, and the pressure can prove overwhelming. “I began to notice that I would stare off into space and black out for seconds or minutes. I would see flashes of things I was tormented by, experiences that were filed away in my brain with ‘I’ll deal with you later’ for many years because my brain was protecting me, as science teaches us. These were also symptoms of disassociation and PTSD and I did not have a team that included mental health support,” according to an article in Variety reporting a speech by the entertainer, whose birth name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
The anguish she felt morphed into physical chronic pain, fibromyalgia, panic attacks, acute trauma responses, and debilitating declines in her mental health – including thoughts of suicide. One root of the trauma might have been a sexual assault that she says she experienced during childhood.
“I wish there had been a system in place to protect and guide me, a system in place to empower me to say no to things I felt I had to do, a system in place to empower me to stay away from toxic work environments or working with people who were of seriously questionable character,” she says. “There were days that I struggled or couldn’t make it to work, and I don’t want that for other artists or anyone.”
Fostering engagement over the phone
After retirement, some people find it difficult to get out into the community and engage with other people. But, for 94-year-old Frances Utpadel, human connection has proven to be a phone call away.
In a service that is provided by the acting industry in Hollywood, the retired film lab technician from Los Angeles has availed herself of the Daily Call Sheet program. The program, run by the Motion Picture and Television Fund and the AARP Foundation, pairs up folks like Ms. Utpadel with a fellow film industry member for phone chats several times each week.
“I was having the downtime because all my friends were moving away and dying,” Ms. Utpadel explains in an interview with People magazine. Now, she and her chat-buddy Norma talk two or three times a week. Conversations range from things going on in their daily lives to world issues.
The content of the conversations can be stimulating, as is sharing her thoughts with a kind voice. “This is something I’m very much for – don’t isolate yourself. I don’t have any friends to be texting or emailing,” she says. “I hear so many people are doing texting and email, and one of the big stores now, they won’t have any cashiers. And, I say, ‘What are they doing to the people? You’re isolating people. And the world is made of people.’”
The connection is even more important for Ms. Utpadel, who for decades, has taken care of her son, Terry – who suffered debilitating injuries in a car crash. She is the sole caregiver for Terry, who is aged 75 years.
Ms. Utpadel is adamant about the value of human interaction in a digital world in which life can be lived in isolation. “I’m used to the generation where you took pictures and had them developed. You don’t have those now. Everybody’s got them on their cell phone. It’s just a whole different world. But, I think, in a way, my world is richer than the other one. I don’t feel deprived about it or anything. I feel I’m better off.”
Communication ‘central’ in palliative care
Being a palliative care surgeon means delivering really bad news. It also means helping a patients deal with the realities of impending death. In this emotionally charged atmosphere, the surgeons’ words can be comforting or devastating.
“One of my mentors once told me that words are somewhat like a palliative care physician’s scalpel,” Toronto palliative care physician Evan Schneider, MD, says in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“We’re dealing with very intense, emotionally charged conversations. I think communication is probably the most central tenet of what we do. … There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to sharing bad news,” said Dr. Schneider says. The bad news may be anticipated or can come as total blind-side to the patient. In some cases, other treatment options may be available. In other cases, palliative care is the only option.
Clarity in communication is an absolute must. That means providing the information in a form that is understandable and relevant to the patients, and not to the physician. Dr. Schneider says his approach involves “trying to use as little overly jargony or medicalized words as necessary.”
Compounding the challenge, Dr. Schneider’s patients exemplify the linguistic stew that is Toronto, where some 140 different languages are spoken. As an English speaker, Dr. Schneider relies on medical interpreters to talk with patients and for their sensitivity to cultural nuances concerning death and dying that escape him.
“Sometimes there are family members who may [want] to protect their loved one from receiving bad news about their diagnosis or prognosis,” he says. “When we bring an interpreter into those scenarios, it can be very hard for family members, because information can be shared through interpretation that were trying to shield their loved one. That’s always a risk or a possibility when we are dealing with information that has to be translated to someone else.”
As an adolescent, says James R. Doty, MD, he was heading down a road toward delinquency. He says his family was poor, and he was often hungry.
His father was an alcoholic, his mother had debilitating depression, and he was so reflexive that, after a nun at his Roman Catholic school slapped him, he slapped her back. But a random decision to browse a magic shop changed the way Dr. Doty was able to imagine his life.
The magic shop owner’s mother, Ruth, taught him about focusing on the present moment – rather than dwelling on past traumas. “What she taught me truly rewired my brain,” he says in an interview with Krista Tippett. “When I met her, I had little to no possibilities. Yet, my own personal circumstances did not change at all.”
“There was a study that was done that showed that the average person, almost 80% of the time, they’re not focused on the present, they’re focused on exactly that: regret about the past or anxiety about the future. When your attention is in those places, you can’t give your full attention to even what’s happening to you at that moment,” Dr. Doty says in the interview with Ms. Tippett for “On Being,” a radio conversation and podcast available online and in some NPR markets. [Distracted attention] “limits what you can accomplish in that moment. Unfortunately, it’s a horrible distraction, and it, again, limits us to the connections we are able to make and actually even who we are.”
Dr. Doty’s life so far has taught him that pain can be harnessed to enrich life.
“Most of us have a tendency to desire pleasure rather than pain. ... I think anyone who has lived a life, which means you have had pain and suffering – is that And it’s part of a meaningful life. When you’re able to take that pain and suffering and use it to not hide from the world, to use it not to be afraid of every interaction, but to use it to say, yes, it is hard sometimes, but I have learned so many lessons and have become more appreciative and have more gratitude and see in so many examples how in the face of the greatest adversity, people have shown their greatest humanity,” he says.
An important part of his journey of discovery has been the beneficial role that meditation can have on the body.
“In fact, even after brief periods of meditation, we actually can study the epigenetic effect of how our genes are changing their expression, even with brief periods of meditation, in the context of inflammation markers,” says Dr. Doty, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford (Calif.) University, and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. “It’s extraordinary, because even with people who have meditated in this manner for as little as 2 weeks, you can see effects in regard to their blood pressure, in regard to the release of stress hormones and effects on the immune system.”
Dr. Doty is author of “Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart,” (New York: Penguin, 2016), and senior editor of the Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science.
Rx: Go visit an art exhibit
An innovative medical initiative has some Montreal physicians writing prescriptions for patients that, instead of leading them to the pharmacy, takes them to a local art museum.
Médecins francophones du Canada, a doctors’ organization based mainly in the province of Quebec, has partnered with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) in providing free museum passes to patients.
Physician members of Médecins francophones du Canada can be approved to issue up to 50 prescriptions for a visit to MMFA collections and exhibitions. This is meant to complement existing and more traditional treatment.
The intent, according to the museum’s chief curator and director general, Nathalie Bondil, is to provide a “relaxing, revitalizing experience, a moment of respite” for those burdened physically or mentally by illness. “We can open new doors, not just for the patients, but also for the doctors,” she remarks in an interview with BBC News.
Patients also can avail themselves of the museum’s art therapy programs. “The neutral, beautiful, inspiring space” of museums like MMFA helps improve a patient’s mood and well-being,” Ms. Bondil says. Contemplating a painting or other artwork can, at least temporarily, take the patient to a mental space not dominated by illness-related worry, fear, anger, and sadness.
The idea of art as medicine is echoed elsewhere. A 2017 report in the United Kingdom recognized the vital contribution of the arts to health and well-being.
Lady Gaga describes health crisis
From a distance, the life of Lady Gaga might seem exotic and desirable. But the musician and actress recently revealed her own “mental health crisis” – and urged Hollywood to make better mental health care available to those in the entertainment business.
Her work also features multiple deadlines, and the pressure can prove overwhelming. “I began to notice that I would stare off into space and black out for seconds or minutes. I would see flashes of things I was tormented by, experiences that were filed away in my brain with ‘I’ll deal with you later’ for many years because my brain was protecting me, as science teaches us. These were also symptoms of disassociation and PTSD and I did not have a team that included mental health support,” according to an article in Variety reporting a speech by the entertainer, whose birth name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
The anguish she felt morphed into physical chronic pain, fibromyalgia, panic attacks, acute trauma responses, and debilitating declines in her mental health – including thoughts of suicide. One root of the trauma might have been a sexual assault that she says she experienced during childhood.
“I wish there had been a system in place to protect and guide me, a system in place to empower me to say no to things I felt I had to do, a system in place to empower me to stay away from toxic work environments or working with people who were of seriously questionable character,” she says. “There were days that I struggled or couldn’t make it to work, and I don’t want that for other artists or anyone.”
Fostering engagement over the phone
After retirement, some people find it difficult to get out into the community and engage with other people. But, for 94-year-old Frances Utpadel, human connection has proven to be a phone call away.
In a service that is provided by the acting industry in Hollywood, the retired film lab technician from Los Angeles has availed herself of the Daily Call Sheet program. The program, run by the Motion Picture and Television Fund and the AARP Foundation, pairs up folks like Ms. Utpadel with a fellow film industry member for phone chats several times each week.
“I was having the downtime because all my friends were moving away and dying,” Ms. Utpadel explains in an interview with People magazine. Now, she and her chat-buddy Norma talk two or three times a week. Conversations range from things going on in their daily lives to world issues.
The content of the conversations can be stimulating, as is sharing her thoughts with a kind voice. “This is something I’m very much for – don’t isolate yourself. I don’t have any friends to be texting or emailing,” she says. “I hear so many people are doing texting and email, and one of the big stores now, they won’t have any cashiers. And, I say, ‘What are they doing to the people? You’re isolating people. And the world is made of people.’”
The connection is even more important for Ms. Utpadel, who for decades, has taken care of her son, Terry – who suffered debilitating injuries in a car crash. She is the sole caregiver for Terry, who is aged 75 years.
Ms. Utpadel is adamant about the value of human interaction in a digital world in which life can be lived in isolation. “I’m used to the generation where you took pictures and had them developed. You don’t have those now. Everybody’s got them on their cell phone. It’s just a whole different world. But, I think, in a way, my world is richer than the other one. I don’t feel deprived about it or anything. I feel I’m better off.”
Communication ‘central’ in palliative care
Being a palliative care surgeon means delivering really bad news. It also means helping a patients deal with the realities of impending death. In this emotionally charged atmosphere, the surgeons’ words can be comforting or devastating.
“One of my mentors once told me that words are somewhat like a palliative care physician’s scalpel,” Toronto palliative care physician Evan Schneider, MD, says in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“We’re dealing with very intense, emotionally charged conversations. I think communication is probably the most central tenet of what we do. … There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to sharing bad news,” said Dr. Schneider says. The bad news may be anticipated or can come as total blind-side to the patient. In some cases, other treatment options may be available. In other cases, palliative care is the only option.
Clarity in communication is an absolute must. That means providing the information in a form that is understandable and relevant to the patients, and not to the physician. Dr. Schneider says his approach involves “trying to use as little overly jargony or medicalized words as necessary.”
Compounding the challenge, Dr. Schneider’s patients exemplify the linguistic stew that is Toronto, where some 140 different languages are spoken. As an English speaker, Dr. Schneider relies on medical interpreters to talk with patients and for their sensitivity to cultural nuances concerning death and dying that escape him.
“Sometimes there are family members who may [want] to protect their loved one from receiving bad news about their diagnosis or prognosis,” he says. “When we bring an interpreter into those scenarios, it can be very hard for family members, because information can be shared through interpretation that were trying to shield their loved one. That’s always a risk or a possibility when we are dealing with information that has to be translated to someone else.”
As an adolescent, says James R. Doty, MD, he was heading down a road toward delinquency. He says his family was poor, and he was often hungry.
His father was an alcoholic, his mother had debilitating depression, and he was so reflexive that, after a nun at his Roman Catholic school slapped him, he slapped her back. But a random decision to browse a magic shop changed the way Dr. Doty was able to imagine his life.
The magic shop owner’s mother, Ruth, taught him about focusing on the present moment – rather than dwelling on past traumas. “What she taught me truly rewired my brain,” he says in an interview with Krista Tippett. “When I met her, I had little to no possibilities. Yet, my own personal circumstances did not change at all.”
“There was a study that was done that showed that the average person, almost 80% of the time, they’re not focused on the present, they’re focused on exactly that: regret about the past or anxiety about the future. When your attention is in those places, you can’t give your full attention to even what’s happening to you at that moment,” Dr. Doty says in the interview with Ms. Tippett for “On Being,” a radio conversation and podcast available online and in some NPR markets. [Distracted attention] “limits what you can accomplish in that moment. Unfortunately, it’s a horrible distraction, and it, again, limits us to the connections we are able to make and actually even who we are.”
Dr. Doty’s life so far has taught him that pain can be harnessed to enrich life.
“Most of us have a tendency to desire pleasure rather than pain. ... I think anyone who has lived a life, which means you have had pain and suffering – is that And it’s part of a meaningful life. When you’re able to take that pain and suffering and use it to not hide from the world, to use it not to be afraid of every interaction, but to use it to say, yes, it is hard sometimes, but I have learned so many lessons and have become more appreciative and have more gratitude and see in so many examples how in the face of the greatest adversity, people have shown their greatest humanity,” he says.
An important part of his journey of discovery has been the beneficial role that meditation can have on the body.
“In fact, even after brief periods of meditation, we actually can study the epigenetic effect of how our genes are changing their expression, even with brief periods of meditation, in the context of inflammation markers,” says Dr. Doty, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford (Calif.) University, and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. “It’s extraordinary, because even with people who have meditated in this manner for as little as 2 weeks, you can see effects in regard to their blood pressure, in regard to the release of stress hormones and effects on the immune system.”
Dr. Doty is author of “Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart,” (New York: Penguin, 2016), and senior editor of the Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science.
Rx: Go visit an art exhibit
An innovative medical initiative has some Montreal physicians writing prescriptions for patients that, instead of leading them to the pharmacy, takes them to a local art museum.
Médecins francophones du Canada, a doctors’ organization based mainly in the province of Quebec, has partnered with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) in providing free museum passes to patients.
Physician members of Médecins francophones du Canada can be approved to issue up to 50 prescriptions for a visit to MMFA collections and exhibitions. This is meant to complement existing and more traditional treatment.
The intent, according to the museum’s chief curator and director general, Nathalie Bondil, is to provide a “relaxing, revitalizing experience, a moment of respite” for those burdened physically or mentally by illness. “We can open new doors, not just for the patients, but also for the doctors,” she remarks in an interview with BBC News.
Patients also can avail themselves of the museum’s art therapy programs. “The neutral, beautiful, inspiring space” of museums like MMFA helps improve a patient’s mood and well-being,” Ms. Bondil says. Contemplating a painting or other artwork can, at least temporarily, take the patient to a mental space not dominated by illness-related worry, fear, anger, and sadness.
The idea of art as medicine is echoed elsewhere. A 2017 report in the United Kingdom recognized the vital contribution of the arts to health and well-being.
Lady Gaga describes health crisis
From a distance, the life of Lady Gaga might seem exotic and desirable. But the musician and actress recently revealed her own “mental health crisis” – and urged Hollywood to make better mental health care available to those in the entertainment business.
Her work also features multiple deadlines, and the pressure can prove overwhelming. “I began to notice that I would stare off into space and black out for seconds or minutes. I would see flashes of things I was tormented by, experiences that were filed away in my brain with ‘I’ll deal with you later’ for many years because my brain was protecting me, as science teaches us. These were also symptoms of disassociation and PTSD and I did not have a team that included mental health support,” according to an article in Variety reporting a speech by the entertainer, whose birth name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
The anguish she felt morphed into physical chronic pain, fibromyalgia, panic attacks, acute trauma responses, and debilitating declines in her mental health – including thoughts of suicide. One root of the trauma might have been a sexual assault that she says she experienced during childhood.
“I wish there had been a system in place to protect and guide me, a system in place to empower me to say no to things I felt I had to do, a system in place to empower me to stay away from toxic work environments or working with people who were of seriously questionable character,” she says. “There were days that I struggled or couldn’t make it to work, and I don’t want that for other artists or anyone.”
Fostering engagement over the phone
After retirement, some people find it difficult to get out into the community and engage with other people. But, for 94-year-old Frances Utpadel, human connection has proven to be a phone call away.
In a service that is provided by the acting industry in Hollywood, the retired film lab technician from Los Angeles has availed herself of the Daily Call Sheet program. The program, run by the Motion Picture and Television Fund and the AARP Foundation, pairs up folks like Ms. Utpadel with a fellow film industry member for phone chats several times each week.
“I was having the downtime because all my friends were moving away and dying,” Ms. Utpadel explains in an interview with People magazine. Now, she and her chat-buddy Norma talk two or three times a week. Conversations range from things going on in their daily lives to world issues.
The content of the conversations can be stimulating, as is sharing her thoughts with a kind voice. “This is something I’m very much for – don’t isolate yourself. I don’t have any friends to be texting or emailing,” she says. “I hear so many people are doing texting and email, and one of the big stores now, they won’t have any cashiers. And, I say, ‘What are they doing to the people? You’re isolating people. And the world is made of people.’”
The connection is even more important for Ms. Utpadel, who for decades, has taken care of her son, Terry – who suffered debilitating injuries in a car crash. She is the sole caregiver for Terry, who is aged 75 years.
Ms. Utpadel is adamant about the value of human interaction in a digital world in which life can be lived in isolation. “I’m used to the generation where you took pictures and had them developed. You don’t have those now. Everybody’s got them on their cell phone. It’s just a whole different world. But, I think, in a way, my world is richer than the other one. I don’t feel deprived about it or anything. I feel I’m better off.”
Communication ‘central’ in palliative care
Being a palliative care surgeon means delivering really bad news. It also means helping a patients deal with the realities of impending death. In this emotionally charged atmosphere, the surgeons’ words can be comforting or devastating.
“One of my mentors once told me that words are somewhat like a palliative care physician’s scalpel,” Toronto palliative care physician Evan Schneider, MD, says in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“We’re dealing with very intense, emotionally charged conversations. I think communication is probably the most central tenet of what we do. … There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to sharing bad news,” said Dr. Schneider says. The bad news may be anticipated or can come as total blind-side to the patient. In some cases, other treatment options may be available. In other cases, palliative care is the only option.
Clarity in communication is an absolute must. That means providing the information in a form that is understandable and relevant to the patients, and not to the physician. Dr. Schneider says his approach involves “trying to use as little overly jargony or medicalized words as necessary.”
Compounding the challenge, Dr. Schneider’s patients exemplify the linguistic stew that is Toronto, where some 140 different languages are spoken. As an English speaker, Dr. Schneider relies on medical interpreters to talk with patients and for their sensitivity to cultural nuances concerning death and dying that escape him.
“Sometimes there are family members who may [want] to protect their loved one from receiving bad news about their diagnosis or prognosis,” he says. “When we bring an interpreter into those scenarios, it can be very hard for family members, because information can be shared through interpretation that were trying to shield their loved one. That’s always a risk or a possibility when we are dealing with information that has to be translated to someone else.”