mental health | Dr. Valerie Brooke

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

Aug 28, 2022
5 min

Perfect Versus Good

It was Voltaire who is attributed with the aphorism “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” I have been contemplating this...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Aug 21, 2022
4 min

Make Friends with Reality

I had been looking forward to going to Yosemite for years. We finally lived in a place that was within easy driving distance. I could...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

May 9, 2022
5 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...

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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 8, 2022
3 min

The Health Benefits of Yoga

In one corner of my vision board for 2022 are the words yoga, flexibility, and keep moving forward. Right next to them is a photo of a...

40 views2 comments

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 14, 2022
3 min

Imposter Syndrome

I will never forget the first medication I ordered as newly practicing physician. It was my first internal medicine rotation of...

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The Stigma of Mental Health Illness in Medical Professionals

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...

45 views1 comment

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 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...

88 views1 comment

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....

112 views0 comments

Valerie Brooke, MD

Jul 5, 2021
5 min

Boxes and Boundaries

Many years ago, a wise therapist gave me some excellent guidance in how to stay sane while parenting a teenager. “Set up a box of...

72 views0 comments

Valerie Brooke, MD

May 4, 2021
4 min

My Magic Pill

I’ll never forget the PowerPoint lecture in medical school that taught us about a powerful medicine seemingly able to prevent and treat...

69 views0 comments