From Our Blog

By Richard E. Kreipe, MD, FAAP, FSAHM, FAED

As a medical student, I enjoyed pediatrics because it involved paying attention to the ever-advancing developmental capacity of patients.  For example, young infants would play peek-a-boo with me—a total stranger.  Their immature brains were already programmed to recognize my face as human, but unable to realize that I was still present…

By Mick Krasner, MD

If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility?

Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

By Ron Epstein, MD

Frequently I am asked to describe how practicing mindfully is integral to good medical practice, yet it is sometimes difficult to put it into just a few words… yet through distractions and daydreaming, putting things off and writing and rewriting, I came to a new clarity. I might not have put it all this way had I been provided the same opportunity even a few years ago. Like all important ideas, it grows and evolves and has a life of their own, and we only catch glimpses of its truth. So, here is mindful practice, with a date stamp, May 2, 2022.

By Fred Marshall, MD

Perhaps for us to engage in compassionate action in the world, we must practice the freedom that comes from gently releasing our narratives and attending as fully as possible to the ever-enduring moment. Perhaps we must come back to our senses.

By Mick Krasner, MD

I have been thinking a lot about the traditional paradigm in medicine of defining patients by their problems. This framing that focuses on deficits, deficiencies, and things to be fixed permeates the ways in which well-being and ill-being are approached. And more than that, this paradigm defines the nature of the challenges facing us as health professionals. We speak of burnout, exhaustion, objectification, unhealthy teamwork, moral distress, and other experiences of being part of a flawed system…  

By Ron Epstein, MD

In the chaos and frustrations of the seemingly endless pandemic and societal upheavals, it’s so tempting to look for someone or something to blame, the “evil other” who, by virtue of differences in perspective or beliefs, is crafted into a justified target for anger. Whatever your beliefs about the pandemic, racism, guns, reproductive health, government and money, more than ever in recent memory, there’s a target – it’s them, not us. 

There is another way…

By Patricia Lück, MB ChB(MD), MPhil PallMed, MSc MedHum

Archbishop Desmond Tutu died Christmas Day, December 25th, 2021. Many in the Mindful Practice community know of him from a quote used in one of our presentations taken from an interview in the documentary I Am. In it he tells us “We are because we belong;” as individuals we are utterly vulnerable and dependent on those around us to survive and thus belong to one another as a collective being. In this, Desmond Tutu challenges the dominant western paradigm of privileged self-interest that seems to have deeply pervaded these past two years of loss, grief, and struggle at all levels, including the micro levels of our personal family and clinical practice lives, and at the macro level of structural social and health inequities, environmental crises, and the ever expanding pandemic.

By Fred Marshall, MD

When we bring awareness to the flow of our experience, we can find ourselves poised on the edge of new discoveries.  Our physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts can stream along in seemingly well-worn channels, but somehow there is always a surprise around the corner.

By Mick Krasner, MD

I recently attended the screening of a German documentary film titled Grenzland, which translates to Borderland. In it the filmmaker Andreas Voigt presents a series of miniature portraits of ordinary people on both sides of the river Oder which forms part of the border between Poland and Germany. The lives of the protagonists in this film have been shaped by the ever-changing nature of this and many other borders around the world. This part of Europe although sparsely populated with small villages and few cities and rich and diverse in bird and plant life nevertheless has experienced in the past 100 years tremendous social, political, and economic upheaval.

By Ron Epstein, M.D.

Each year I plant a garden, but since the start of the pandemic, I’ve been more attentive and ambitious. My garden plot gets just enough sun for cherry tomatoes, and I have herbs growing in pots on the deck just outside my home office. I also have two bay laurel trees, now over 7 feet tall, which I grew from seedlings.