Valerie Brooke, MD
The 4 F's - Flight, Fight, Freeze, Fawn
When I first heard someone mention the “4 F’s,” I immediately thought of the swear word...
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Heal, Play, Love
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Valerie Brooke, MD
Mar 278 min
Scam 101
The phone call couldn’t have come at a worse time. It was the day before we left for our move to Alaska and the movers were shuffling...
303 views2 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Mar 123 min
Too Many Stairs
I’m wondering if the only physicians that think about how many stairs are in a patient's home are rehabilitation physicians. While other...
75 views1 comment
Valerie Brooke, MD
Feb 283 min
Did I fail?
I’ve been going through my home, room by room, organizing for my upcoming move to Anchorage, Alaska for a new inpatient rehabilitation...
281 views8 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Feb 124 min
The Human Impact of Hospital Closures
We all gathered around the nursing station in preparation for the last celebration of a patient discharging from the inpatient...
616 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Feb 15 min
Things I Cannot Control
The universe or God or fate or just random unluckiness is teaching me about acceptance and control this week. I was sitting at a gate in...
205 views3 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Jan 256 min
Anyone medical on board?
I was fully immersed in a fantastic memoir, Angela’s Ashes, sitting in an aisle seat on my flight back from Wisconsin to Reno last...
190 views7 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Jan 34 min
Locum What?
When I tell people I’m working as a locum tenens, most look at me with confusion, like I am speaking a foreign language. Which I am, as...
116 views2 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Sep 18, 20233 min
Curiosity and the Practice of Medicine
“Curiosity is the genesis of empathy,” were the astute words in my weekly email from writer Jeannine Ouellette. I'm taking a course from...
50 views1 comment
Valerie Brooke, MD
Aug 7, 20234 min
Listening to a Patient’s Story
I am part of a writer’s group and together we are doing a 12-week course on how to write a lyrical essay. The first week’s assignment is...
76 views1 comment
Valerie Brooke, MD
May 4, 20233 min
Responding to Suffering
Last year I started attending monthly lectures put on by the Nevada Physician Wellness Coalition (NPWC), an organization in line with my...
98 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Jan 21, 20235 min
Getting COVID
DETECTED. SARS-CoV-2. There were the words on the lab results page I had seen so many times at the hospital where I worked. I never...
122 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Dec 6, 20226 min
Things that Get in the Way
I recently picked up a dusty book from the overflowing self-help shelf on my bookcase: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. I’d had...
88 views1 comment
Valerie Brooke, MD
Oct 20, 20224 min
Words Matter
Quite frequently I will come across the word “non-compliant” in the medical record of a patient, one that I am going to admit to the...
101 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Aug 15, 20225 min
Poor Insight
One of my favorite words in stroke recovery is anosognosia (a-no-sag-no-zhea). This is the bizarre symptom a patient often has after an...
55 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
May 9, 20225 min
Love and Money
It took me many drives to work to realize what bothered me about this billboard. At first, I thought it was because I could not for the...
78 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Mar 1, 20223 min
I Wish I'd Known
Yesterday I was invited to give a talk to a group of about fifty freshmen undergraduates at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). These...
104 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Feb 20, 20224 min
Death and Dying
I was not aware during my medical training how fearful patients and medical professionals are about the one thing that we all will...
83 views0 comments
Valerie Brooke, MD
Feb 14, 20223 min
Imposter Syndrome
I will never forget the first medication I ordered as newly practicing physician. It was my first internal medicine rotation of...
89 views0 comments
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