Valerie Brooke, MD
The Science of Gratitude
Many years before I studied to become a physician, giving thanks for the blessings in my life was the first part of my morning prayers. ...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- May 4
- 3 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...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Apr 24
- 3 min
Restoration
It's been a long time since I've written, too long for sure, but a lot has happened in my personal and professional life in the last...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Dec 6, 2022
- 6 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...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Apr 10, 2022
- 3 min
Pretzel Twists and Introspection
When I first stepped onto a yoga mat in my late twenties, I had no idea yoga entailed so much more than just moving my body into more and...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Mar 1, 2022
- 3 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...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Feb 7, 2022
- 4 min
The Stigma of Mental Health Illness in Medical Professionals
The other day one of my physician colleagues shared a story with me about some seemingly helpful advice he was given during the first...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Jan 31, 2022
- 3 min
Personal and Professional Perfectionism
To be perfect means to be “excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement.” Perfectionism is multi-dimensional and can...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Jan 23, 2022
- 4 min
Moral Injury
The term moral injury popped into the conversation about physician burnout back in 2018, when an article was published entitled...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Jan 16, 2022
- 3 min
Balancing the See Saw
On the way home from skiing last weekend my husband and I were humming along to the familiar 1968 Moody Blues song, “Ride…Ride my…blah...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Jan 2, 2022
- 5 min
Doctors Don't Do Lunch
As part of my research on physician burnout, I have been reading books by other physicians who suggest multiple different strategies for...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Dec 19, 2021
- 2 min
Professional Accomplishment
In addition to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, not having a sense of personal accomplishment is the third symptom of burnout....
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Dec 12, 2021
- 3 min
Resilience
What type of person comes to mind when you think of the characteristic of resilience, the ability to continuously bounce back from...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Dec 5, 2021
- 3 min
Depersonalization
The meaning of depersonalization has always alluded me. How can one not feel like a person? I finally understood it when I experienced...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Nov 28, 2021
- 2 min
Compassion Fatigue
When I realized last year I was feeling burned out in my job as a physician, I dove into learning as much as I could about the symptoms...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Nov 21, 2021
- 3 min
Permission To Feel
I recently had an interaction with a patient that had suffered a stroke and it got me thinking about emotions. I was asking this patient...
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Nov 14, 2021
- 3 min
Emotional Exhaustion
This was a vivid dream I had in August of 2020, after a 10-hour day of work, on day 4 of a 12-day stretch at the rehabilitation hospital....
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Valerie Brooke, MD
- Oct 17, 2021
- 3 min
Death by a Thousand Cuts
That was the last line of a frustrated email from a physician in our medical group. She was responding to yet another notification from...
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