Why Health Care Lacks Love →

I am a woman doctor, but I inherited a patriarchal medical model. A patriarchal medical model rewards male values.

MALE VALUES:

Speed
Volume
Bigness
Toughness
Graphs
Charts
Algorithms
Proof
Strength
Fighting
War metaphors

But I am a woman doctor. I have female values.

FEMALE VALUES:

Relationships
Nurturing
Hugging
Joy
Laughing
Crying
Feeling
Spirituality
Sharing
Caring
LOVE!

To be accepted in a man’s world, women adopt male values. A patriarchal medical model produces masculinized women doctors. I did not go into medicine to be a masculinized woman doctor. I went into medicine to be a healer—and a woman. And that’s what I am.

Pamela Wible, M.D. is a 100% woman doctor who practices family medicine in Eugene, Oregon. She is author of Pet Goats & Pap Smears: 101 Medical Adventures to Open Your Heart & Mind, a book that celebrates the love a woman doctor has for her patients.

Tags: health care, ideal medical care, love, pamela wible

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Preventing Physician Suicide, Depression, Burnout →

Turn off your cell phone. Get off the grid. Take a deep breath and say, “Ah . . .” You are invited to Live Your Dream: Revolutionize Your Medical Practice, a healing retreat for physicians at Breitenbush Hot Springs.

Take refuge with like-minded colleagues who realize that healing health care begins within. Reclaim your vision, and then liberate yourself to practice medicine in alignment with your values—and the values of your community. Rest, replenish, and retreat with kindred spirits while learning to engage community, thrill patients and staff—even slash overhead and increase your income! Learn effective practice models, cures for common office irritants, medical marketing, media and more.

Soak, sauna, and soothe your soul while mastering the business, leadership, and community organizing skills you never learned in medical school so you can launch your own ideal clinic (or love your current practice). Breitenbush Retreat and Conference Center is a worker-owned cooperative and intentional community on 154 acres of wildlife sanctuary in the Willamette National Forest of the Oregon Cascades.

The Breitenbush mission is to provide a safe and potent environment where people can renew and evolve in ways they never imagined. Enjoy snow-capped mountain vistas overlooking the Breitenbush River while soaking in the hot springs with your new physician friends from all over the country (and Canada!). Hike ancient forest trails and walk the labyrinth. Savor three bountiful, organic vegetarian meals daily with vegan and gluten-free options. Sleep peacefully (and uninterrupted) in cozy, geothermally heated cabins. Breitenbush is a healing vortex and sanctuary that allows busy clinicians to take a break from technology and focus on personal goals and dreams.

Live Your Dream: Revolutionize Your Practice is offered biannually. The next retreat will be April 23-26, 2013. Mark your calendar! Plan to stay an extra day or two before or after the workshop if you like. Optional massage and bodywork is available onsite for an additional fee. The event is open to doctors, medical students, nurse practitioners, and other health care professionals. Scholarships are available to medical students and others in financial need. Live Your Dream is offered by Pamela Wible, M.D., a Eugene-based physician who pioneered the first community-designed ideal clinic in America. Her model is now taught in medical schools. She trains physicians nationwide, has been interviewed by CNN, ABC, CBS, and is a frequent guest on NPR.

She has expertise in preventing physician suicide, depression, and burnout. Co-facilitator is Kassy Daggett, a highly skilled coach and therapist. Learn more: www.IdealMedicalCare.org. For rapid registration: Please email Dr. Wible through her website with your contact information. Space is limited. Register now to secure your spot.

Tags: health care, ideal medical care, pamela wible, Pet Goats and Pap Smears, physician suicide

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My Love Affair with Medical Waste →

I’m an obsessive-compulsive collector. So is my dad.

Raised in a morgue, I worked alongside Dad, the city medical examiner. Over fifty years, he amassed a huge collection of medical artifacts. My siblings don’t want any of it. So now I’m the curator of the collection.

Dad carefully ships the specimens to me. Today, I open my mailbox and discover a bag full of pacemakers and pessaries, a priority package of bullets—all retrieved from human bodies.

Physician family heirlooms. Some see only medical waste. But I see marvel and mystery, beauty and art, and mostly my love of medicine–a love I share with my dad.

I don’t believe in throwing away people or parts of people or parts of people’s stories. I can’t discard the device that saved a woman’s life or the bullet that took a man’s breath away.

And so my bedroom is a museum of medical art, a morgue of half-lived lives, of hopes and dreams, lost and found–all in a one-of-a-kind collection of pacemakers and pessaries, bullets and bones that live near my necklaces and nightgowns.

I’m a doctor and a storyteller. One day, I shall tell the untold stories of unnamed people I’ve never met. And I shall bring their medical waste back to life.

Tags: ideal medical care, medical waste, pamela wible

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Yes, Men Need Pap Smears Too! →

Go ahead and laugh, but it’s true. Men get Pap smears too.

Not all men. Just high-risk men who have sex with men.

The female Pap smear is a screening test for cervical cancer, which is a sexually-induced cancer caused by the Human Papillomavirus. The Human Papillomavirus is also easily transmitted to the anus in men who have sex with men. Anal Pap smears screen for abnormal anal cells that may lead to anal cancer.

But don’t worry guys. You won’t need a large vaginal speculum for your exam. Just a small, friendly swab about the size of a Q-tip.

Now watch a LIVE Pap smear demo here:

Pamela Wible, M.D. is a family physician and author of Pet Goats & Pap Smears.

Tags: ideal medical care, pamela wible, Pap smear, Pet Goats and Pap Smears

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Love Is Medicine →

It’s Valentine’s Day 1997. I’m at Sacred Heart Hospital admitting a colleague’s patient—an elderly man dying of heart disease. On oxygen, gasping for life, he exchanges no words. His wife—unable to bear the pain of watching him die—leaves the room. So it’s just the two of us this Valentine’s Eve. A blind date. No champagne. No candlelit dinner. I could leave too, but it doesn’t seem right to let this guy die alone on this romantic day. So I sit with him, hold his hand, and cry.

A cardiologist looks in. Startled by my emotion, he says, “You must be a new doctor,” then disappears down the hall.

Maybe old doctors don’t cry, but I don’t want to close my heart to the wounded. I don’t believe in professional distance. I believe in professional closeness. And I believe in loving my patients.

During my pediatric rotation in medical school I used to stay up late at night in the hospital holding sick and dying children. I’d lift them from their cribs and sing to them, rocking them back and forth. One day the head of the department gave me a compliment I’ll never forget. He said that I was a doctor when my patients needed a doctor and a mother when they needed a mother.

A few years ago I visited the foster home where my nephew lived before he moved in with me. I spent the weekend with a dozen teenage boys, all on psychiatric medications. An autistic child had just moved into the home that day. As it got dark, he begged me to tuck him into bed. That night I tucked all 12 boys into bed and kissed them goodnight. When the foster mom found out she said, “You crazy. Them boys hasn’t been kissed in years!”

Some patients don’t need a pill. They need a kiss.