Dr. Dawn, The Suicide Prevention Pharmacist

Meetings

Meetings. Does the word itself make you cringe? Of course, there are a variety of meetings out there – recreational group meetings, civic group meetings, informal social meetings, work meetings, and probably other types that I am not thinking of here. Some of these meetings can give us pleasure and a sense of purpose. Others probably seem like a way to just go through some motions. Is there a way to make meetings, especially the ones that seem pointless, more meaningful? Here are some additional questions that I have to address this topic.

First, do we ever question if the meeting is necessary at all? Are there really any items to discuss or address, or is the meeting simply being held because it has always been held at a certain time and place repeatedly? Could items be addressed by a quick email instead? Asking these simple questions could eliminate some meetings right off the bat.

If the meeting is found to be necessary, can it be scheduled for a shorter amount of time? Can it be held less frequently if there are no items to discuss? These questions can help to reduce the frequency and/or duration of meetings.

Next, how about the quality of the meeting? Is there an agenda to keep the discussion focused? Does each agenda item alot a specified amount of time for discussion and/or action? You might argue that if there is no agenda, you do not need to attend the meeting, but that decision up to you.

In the end, I challenge everyone to think about the meetings they attend. Does the meeting feel necessary to you? Does the meeting have a focus to it? Depending on your evaluation, can you decline going to the meeting? Perhaps you can save and enjoy some time by taking a closer look at the meetings you attend.

Daily Grind

Do you ever feel like you are doing the same thing over and over again throughout your days or weeks? Does your job seem monotonous? Do your other responsibilities seem to be the same? Do you feel like you are just going through the motions day after day?

Sometimes the daily grind can feel boring. Nothing seems to change. It is just the same ol’ same ol’. When I start thinking like this, there are several ways I try to look at it so I can change this attitude and move on. Here they are:

1.Sometimes I think that boring is better than having a change that would be upsetting or depressing. I would rather have a regular day then hear bad news about anyone or anything. While this may not be the most positive way to think, it can help.

2.I can be more mindful and find things that are different and/or that are beautiful little moments that make up a day. Sure, it may feel like your usual daily grind, but there are parts of it that are great every time. Some examples for me are moments with my son and husband. And, if you really look into it, every day is truly different in at least some small ways – some examples can include what you are wearing and what you eat, among others.

3.I can purposely add more variety into my days. Maybe I take up a new hobby that I work on during any breaks that I may have. Maybe I find a new book to read. Maybe I find an old friend to contact. There can be many ways to change up at least parts of your day and give it more flavor.

How about you? Do any of these ideas appeal to you? If so, how might you implement it? With just a little thought, your daily grind can be more appealing.

Lessons Learned

Recently I was involved in a walk for a charitable cause. Not only did I walk, but I also volunteered to help with the event. Overall, it seems to have gone well, but there were a few items that need to be addressed if we decide to do it at the same place next year. As I was volunteering and walking, I was making a mental note of “lessons learned”, and then later on that day I wrote them down so I could remember them for future discussions. “Lessons learned” seems to be something I hear about a lot these days, and I think it can be helpful for improving and growing in many areas.

To me, lessons learned are those things that didn’t go well or didn’t go as well as you had anticipated. Perhaps they are even things that you failed to plan for ahead of time. However you define it, I like the idea of lessons learned. We don’t call them mistakes. We don’t call them failures. We look at them as ways to improve and do better the next time. My initial example is related to the walk I helped with, but lessons learned can be applied anywhere. Starting a new eating plan? Starting a new exercise routine? Starting anything new? Tweaking or changing an existing routine? All of these things, plus many more can include lessons learned.

And, while lessons learned is important to identify what might need changes, another piece is that you have to actually do something about it. It is not enough to simply identify what didn’t go so well, but the key step is deciding what you are going to do about it. So, the next time you are looking at an event or routine of yours, think about what could be better. Then, decide what you can do to make that happen. Lessons learned can be a great way to work on incremental improvement.

Individualized Medicine

In my last entry, I discussed noticing the growth of online summits. A theme from many of these talks is the concept of individualized medicine, and that is something I want to discuss further.

What is individualized medicine? I don’t present a formal definition here, but it is essentially what you would suspect – medicine that is based on an individual. It is not a “one size fits all” approach to treating someone. Treatment plans are created that focus on the individual’s history, diagnosis, preferences, values, and so on.

While some of these treatment strategies are not necessarily available yet, there are some ideas about what individualized medicine will entail. An example is using medication. At this point, most people will get a dose that is prescribed to everyone, say 25 mg a day of a drug. But, what if the person only needs 8 mg a day to show a benefit? What if they need 42 mg a day? What if the drug doesn’t work for them at all? Individualized medicine will take this into account.

Another aspect of individualized medicine is realizing that a treatment that helps one may not help anyone else. In this respect, people may receive the same diagnosis but may experience different treatments. Of course, creating these individualized plans will no doubt take more time, and I am hopeful that this will lead to fewer and more meaningful appointments throughout the day. Of course, someone has to pay for it all, but again I am hopeful this is the way to go.

Overall, it is exciting to see the discussion and steps that are being taking towards individualized medicine. Although we are all alike in many ways, everyone has unique genetics, behavior, and biochemistry (among other things) that should be taken into account when being treated for an illness or disease. I look forward to seeing this concept continue to progress.

Summit

These days, there are so many ways to get information. There are podcasts, radio, video, social media, TV, texts, phone – and I am probably missing quite a few others. Although I talked previously about podcasts, I wanted to talk about yet another way to learn about topics – summits.

The summits I am referring to are held online, although of course there are summits that can be done in person. Summits can be done live online or they can be viewed after they have been recorded. Lately I have found myself hearing more and more about summits, particularly related to health and wellness. I imagine there are summits out there for a wide variety of topics, but the ones I have seen have been related to topics such as mental wellness, fertility, arthritis, and nutrition. For the most part, I have not found these on my own, but rather they have popped up on my social media or I have received emails because I have signed up for certain email lists. The summits typically will include 20 or more interviews with experts in the field being highlighted.

My guess is that you can do a Google search for these summits. There is usually a catch or two, however. You almost always have to give an email address, and a lot of them are only free to view for a certain time period. After that, you can pay to view them at any time you want. I have paid for a few of them so I could have access to the talks anytime I wanted, but some I have viewed only when they were free. The nice thing about a lot of the summits I have seen is that a lot of times they will do them again with updated information, so if you miss one there is usually a new one right around the corner. So, if you are looking for information, it might be worth an internet search to see if there is a summit on the topic. It might be full of information that could be helpful to you.

Patience

As I write today’s entry, we are in the middle of planning a family trip that is coming up very soon. And, although I am excited about having the opportunity to go on another trip, the planning part is about to drive me crazy. We have been going over details for hours and hours, and I just want to get flights, hotels, and a rental vehicle booked. In my mind everything else can wait – if the basics aren’t covered, then to me there is no sense in figuring out what we will do when we are there.

I’ve talked about patience (including my lack of it) before, and here it is again. Why can’t I just go with the flow? Why is this driving me so crazy? I think part of the issue is that I know there are lots of other things that need to be done. I would like to get this out of the way so we can move on. Is that so irrational? Probably not, but I dislike how my impatience makes me feel.

In the end, I know we will get it done. It may take what seems like forever, but it will get done. This is yet another reminder of how I need to slow down and start learning from patience instead of dreading it and letting it overtake me. How I do that, though, will definitely be a marathon and not a sprint. Hopefully just being able to acknowledge when it is happening is a good first step. This also seems to be a good indication that I need to step up on some mindfulness and meditation practices. This is an area I will probably always struggle with, but at least I can recognize it. This helps to me to work with it and not against it.

Self-Awareness (or Lack Thereof)

As I write this entry, we are in the midst of allergy season. Ragweed is one of the worst culprits during the late summer season around here, and this always seems to be the worst part of the year for me. I have a long history of ear, nose, and sinus problems, and I have had a long history with allergies too. I was allergy tested several years ago, and basically I was found to be allergic to everything. This made me laugh, because somehow I had been fortunate enough to survive all of this time without an anaphylactic reaction to anything, let alone everything. As a result of the testing I ended up giving myself allergy shots for about a year. After that I have seemed to tolerate allergy seasons better, but it also could be that I exercise and take care of myself better than I ever did too.

Looking at all of my history with allergies and sinus issues, this year seemed to be going very well. I sneezed some and had some drainage, but it wasn’t really bothering me that much. Lately, though, I have had to wake up at night to drain, and again, while it didn’t bother me it bothered my husband. So, today I went to an ENT doctor to see if there was a reason for my more frequent draining. Turns out I have a secondary infection from my allergies. Wow! I had no idea! I wasn’t really feeling all that different, but I have probably been walking around with an infection for possibly a month now. Boy do I feel silly. Here I thought my allergies were the best they had ever been, and I’ve had an infection. Geez.

Today’s incident has made me feel a major lack of self-awareness. How could I miss this? How could I not sense that something was off? I’ll get over it, but I think I need to work on giving myself some grace here. Sometimes things do get missed. Luckily, a lot of times it doesn’t affect much. I assume eventually I would have started feeling uncomfortable and would have figured I should seek some help. For now, I can rest in the knowledge that sometimes I will miss things, and that doing so is part of being a perfectly imperfect human.

Podcasts

Are you familiar with podcasts? While not a formal definition, I think of podcasts as shows that you listen to – somewhat similar to talk radio. However, the variety of topics for podcasts is pretty wide ranging, and there is bound to be a podcast on a topic that you find interesting. The other neat thing is that with today’s technology pretty much anyone can create and distribute podcasts. It can be a great way to share ideas, opinions and advice with others.

Where can you find podcasts? A lot of times I hear about them from email lists that I am on. If you read books or magazines, they may direct you to podcasts. Doing a simple internet search for a podcast on a topic of interest can also be done. Regardless of how you do it, it usually does not take long to find a lot of podcasts that you would enjoy listening to (assuming you enjoy this type of activity).

Of course, the next question is: when do you listen to all of these podcasts that you have found? That can definitely be tricky. Depending on the work you do, you may be able to listen to them while you are working. I don’t advocate this if it impairs your ability to work, but it might be an option. You can listen to them when you are driving, but again only if it doesn’t impair your ability to drive. You can listen to them when you are exercising. You can listen to them when you are doing chores around the house. That is one of the benefits to podcasts – there are so many different opportunities to listen to them. So, take some time today to consider what role, if any, podcasts could play in your life, as they can be a great way to learn and enjoy the world around us.

Guilt

I have been spending the last few entries talking about my recent trip to New York City. While it was a great trip, one thing I wanted to touch on was the experience of leaving my child for an extended period of time for the first time. Until our trip, I had spent maybe two or three single nights away from my son, and those were hard in several ways, but it was only a night. To spend almost a whole week away? I wasn’t so sure I had made the right decision to make this trip happen.

I can say that the anticipation of leaving was hard, and I started getting anxious about a couple of weeks before the trip. The worst part was leaving him to go on the trip. Then, of course, most of the time we were gone I felt guilty that I was having fun without taking care of him too. It wasn’t all bad emotions, though. I was excited to be on the trip, and I knew that he was being taken care of very well. There was happy, sad, and everything else in between. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure what I felt. I certainly missed him, and I felt guilty about leaving him, but I continued to enjoy the trip.

Even though going to New York City wasn’t easy from this perspective, in some ways I felt like I had to do it. Why? Both my child and I needed to understand that others can take care of him. That it is ok for mommy to have a life and go places every once in while. That it is ok for my child to spend more time with others. It is hard, but I think these are important things to understand. It’s not fair to ask me to be someone’s entire world and vice versa, and experiences like this help to share the great fortune that we have in having a group of people who care about our child. I’m not sure how I will feel the next time I leave my child for several nights, but I’m hoping that it will get easier for everyone involved.