physician training | Dr. Valerie Brooke

Last Call

By last call I don’t mean the last call for alcohol before a bar closes; those nights are long behind me fortunately, way back to my...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Feb 20, 20245 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Jan 3, 20244 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Sep 18, 20233 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Aug 7, 20234 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Mar 1, 20223 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Feb 20, 20224 min read

Imposter Syndrome

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

Valerie Brooke, MD

Feb 14, 20223 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Feb 7, 20224 min read

Personal and Professional Perfectionism

To be perfect means to be “excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement.” Perfectionism is multi-dimensional and can...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Jan 31, 20223 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Jan 2, 20225 min read

Resilience

What type of person comes to mind when you think of the characteristic of resilience, the ability to continuously bounce back from...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Dec 12, 20213 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Nov 28, 20212 min read

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...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Oct 17, 20213 min read

Spreading Wings

The hoo hoodoo hoooo hoo woke me up in the early morning hours. It was just after 4 am. My alarm would go off soon anyway, so I dragged...

Valerie Brooke, MD

Apr 14, 20214 min read