Tag Archives: patients

The Three Services I Want to Provide to My Patients

Lara Baatenburg

Lara Baatenburg

We all have those areas of life where we just feel incredibly out of place and like we are standing like deer in the headlights. For me, this is going to the mechanic. I’m always nervous to bring my car in; what if there is something wrong with my car and I can’t afford it, what if the mechanic tries to pull a fast one on me, what if, what if, what if? I recently had to go to my mechanic, and he proceeded to list all the things wrong with my car. As I stood there nodding my understanding I was really thinking that I had no idea what he was talking about. He was using words I didn’t know, explaining about parts of the car I had never heard of, and the list of my ignorance goes on. Obviously I know nothing about vehicles, but I don’t want him to know that!  When he finished and asked if I had any questions I responded confidently, “Nope, you did a great job of explaining that, thank you,” when really I had no idea what to ask because since I only understood maybe 10% of what I was told, forming any question was difficult.

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How to Motivate Patients to Immunize

Margot Savoy, MD, MPH

Margot Savoy, MD, MPH

This is part of a series by the STFM Group on Immunization Education for National Immunization Awareness Month.

Immunization conversations can be a challenge even for the most experienced family physician. Even when both the physician and patient agree on the benefit of vaccination, the discussion may require navigating a complicated mix of public health, infectious disease, and immunology interspersed with patient fears about safety and benefit. Fitting that neatly into an already jam-packed 15-minute encounter can be difficult.

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I Believe There’s no Such Thing as a Work-Life Balance

Katherine Fortenberry_Web

Katherine Fortenberry, PhD

I_BelieveLogoThis is the first in a series of collaborative blog posts between the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.

There’s no such thing as work-life balance. I think this every morning when I leave for work, watching my 2-year-old son press his face against the front window and wave at me as I back down the driveway. It comes up again at work, as I guiltily feel relieved when a patient cancels and I have an unexpected half hour to work on a behavioral science presentation for residents. There is always somewhere else that I should be and something else that I should be working on.

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