fear
Coronavirus and Fear
Fear is a primal emotion, and to pretend that the medical staff are any less susceptible than the general public is folly. I sometimes feel as though we need to negotiate an armistice of sorts with our fears. There is a certain amount of salutary fear we need to accept, the kind that keeps us respectful of the high stakes in caring for patients. But we also have to recognize that there are irrational fears, the kinds that are not necessarily allayed by data. More
Danielle Ofri’s TED Talk on “Fear: A Necessary Emotion”
Fear is a perfectly human state for a doctor to be in. However, it’s not necessarily the most ideal situation for your patient to be in. Danielle Ofri’s TED talk is a harrowing journey through the intricacies of fear. More
Keeping Perspective on Ebola
Irrational fears are highly contagious, and there’s no vaccine for that. So just like in the hospital, we need to use universal precautions. Be skeptical of hype. Get your facts from reliable sources and keep things in perspective. More
The Raw Fear of Being a Patient
At that moment, my faith in science plummeted from beneath me. My decades of medical training, my Ph.D. in biochemistry, my grounding in the scientific method, all evaporated in the blink of an eye. More
When Doctors Feel Fear
I remember the first time I laid eyes on an actual amygdala, after slicing through a brain with a repurposed kitchen knife in neuroanatomyclass. That’s it? I thought. That nickel-size splotch tucked below the temporal lobes was the seat of my fears? It was monumentally underwhelming and even lacked
the poetic almond shape that its Latin name connotes.
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Fear is a Primal Emotion
This was it—the first code I was in charge of. After two years of racing to codes as a first- and second-year resident, now suddenly, the code was mine. I was the one to call the shots, to direct the care, to assign the jobs, to make the decisions….Shit! More
