burnout | Dr. Valerie Brooke

How Italy and Celaena Sardothien Have Inspired Me

Valerie Brooke, MD

Nov 73 min read

How Italy and Celaena Sardothien Have Inspired Me

I had forgotten how old Europe is, like hundreds of years older than the US. One church we visited, the Duomo di Siena, took 300 years...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Feb 205 min read

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...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Feb 64 min read

Rest

I am not good at resting. I recently said to my husband as he sat on the couch watching one of his favorite TV series, “I need to learn...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Nov 27, 20234 min read

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, 20233 min read

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, 20233 min read

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, 20226 min read

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, 20223 min read

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, 20223 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...

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The Stigma of Mental Health Illness in Medical Professionals

Valerie Brooke, MD

Feb 7, 20224 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...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Jan 31, 20223 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...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Jan 23, 20224 min read

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, 20223 min read

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, 20225 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...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Dec 19, 20212 min read

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, 20213 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...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Dec 5, 20213 min read

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, 20212 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...

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Valerie Brooke, MD

Nov 21, 20213 min read

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, 20213 min read

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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