Individual Daily Risk Profile picture
Sep 3, 2018 12 tweets 3 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Attaching emotion to physical objects that are inherently temporary leads to inevitable sadness. #MuseoNacionalDeBrasil
You have two superior options:
1. Celebrate each day a temporary physical item is not destroyed. “Good morning, coffee cup! It is so great to see you not broken again today!!”
2. Put your effort and emotion into unbreakable eternal projects. Beads on the string of causation.
Here’s a short list of things that won’t be eventually ruined predictably in a fire, flood, or disaster:
- teaching someone
- forgiveness
- love
- helping someone through a hard time

These project lead to other effects and so on. Eternally. Each is indestructible. Causation.
The Mona Lisa, Michelangos David. The Great Pyramids of Giza. They are all wearing out and wearing down. They might last a few hundred years or a few million, but the day will come when they are gone forever.

Like writing a beautiful poem in the sand at the beach with a stick.
If you teach someone something and help them understand, they might do the same. And again & again. That lesson or advice might last 10 years or 10 billion. Even though it seems so squishy and temporary, adding a bead to the string of causation can become a very durable project.
Definitely more durable than a paper book or a glass jar or a canvas painting. When I my kids were little and they broke a glass, they would get upset. I’d say, “Where are all the glasses from 100 years ago?”
“I don’t know.”
“They all broke. Predictably. Don’t worry about it.”
The reason I am threading away on this tangent is that this is what I am doing here on the twitter with @medicalaxioms. I’m not carving these tweets on stone tablets for eternity. The eternity starts with you, reader, and continues with the people you influence.
These pixels and electrons are thoroughly temporary but my goal is to create something that lasts longer than any Egyptian papyrus or cuneiform clay tablet.

That is a change within you that may cause a change within another person.
It’s a lofty goal. I don’t need 100% success. I’m looking for any success. Even just one.

It’s a bit of a ridiculous proposition. There is nothing to show or measure. Nothing to put on the CV. That’s just how it is when you grasp the truth of things.
Filling libraries with books and museums with dead birds and artifacts is a temporary refusal to admit this stuff will inevitably wear out, get broken, burn up and turn to dust.

Personally I love museums. I think, “I can’t believe this junk made it all the way to today!”
If all the junk made it to today, there would be no need for museums. I’d be drinking out of Roman glassware every morning.

Museums keep the (ever shrinking) number of old things in one place for us to stare at.
Anyway When I go to the Louvre I think, “It’s amazing they stole all this stuff from around the world and I’m seeing it before it inevitably turns to ashes and dust.”

It makes going to a museum more special. It makes it less sad when a museum burns down. It’s just nature.

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More from @medicalaxioms

Sep 18, 2018
Let’s see if we can come to some consensus about what a doctor looks and acts like. I’m going to share my experience which may be very limited and provincial. Feel free to share your opinions as we go along to help us flesh out this definition.

Gender: any
Skin tone: limited to the available hues available to humans on earth. (Note: tattoos are okay, so we’ll add the visible spectrum)

Country of origin: limited to the countries on earth

Religion: any. (Note: my nurse friend practices Satanism. He’s very nice)
Hair: I’m going to be conservative about this one. Bald to real long. And everywhere in between. But I think a doctor’s hair should be kinda tidy not full on caveman/woman. Need comments here. I’d like to be more specific. I’m not sure if I know what hair doesn’t look doctory.
Read 12 tweets
Sep 4, 2018
I know I shouldn’t do it and it’s unkind to take advantage of another person’s weakness but when I come across a short-tempered person who is quick to anger I sometimes make them angry on purpose. Then I make them come, sit, lie down, and roll over. It’s just so easy.
When I was younger and (more of a) hothead people did this to me. I never understood the irony that my anger I used to gain power and control actually made me very easy to manipulate.

The light went on when I realized my anger was a response to being hurt.
One of my shrinks suggested I “stop at hurt.” Just pause right there without releasing the adrenaline and preparing to hurt back. It’s not easy. Takes practice.

Now I see the initial hurt is always less then the self destructive rush of anger.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 2, 2018
There is a line between sickness and health where we stop treating the person like a person, “hi it’s Dr. Reid here, nice to meet you,” and start treating them like a situation or a procedure “hand me that suction, this is a tough one.”
When I was a rookie, this line was way out here towards health. To the the point where the patient might say, “I can hear you. I’m right here.”
With time, I’ve moved the line out to death. Then I heard a bunch of pathologist on #medtwitter talk about how using good manners around the dead is necessary to maintain their humanity. So I’m trying to get rid of the line altogether.
Read 4 tweets
Aug 10, 2018
If patients are the enemy, call in sick today.
Set to work on your spiritual condition.*
Keep calling in every day until you’ve set it right.
*I use this term a lot and people don’t know what I am talking about.

Spiritual Condition manifests as compassion, forgiveness, empathy, gratitude, generosity. It’s not those things though. It the feeling of wholeness, safety, strength, connectedness, appreciation.
For many humans, spiritual condition is something that happens to them. An accident. “I’m having a good day today!”

Same with bad days. “Everyone is a jerk!” “I’m so unlucky!”

This serves many purposes, mainly that your spiritual condition becomes someone else’s fault.
Read 12 tweets
Aug 8, 2018
Even more powerful:

- walk up to a colleague you don’t always agree with or who seems not to respect your opinion
- out of the blue, thank them for being a dependable & helpful colleague and all their good work
- walk away leaving them shocked or baffled
- do it again
I enjoy this kind of thing. It is subversive. The Evil Demons who would like to keep shirts playing skins and X fighting O despise this kind of disturbance.

Vanishing grudges and dropped resentments infuriate the Evil Demons who thrive on conflict and hatred.
They want everyone to play their part. Hatfield and McCoy. Mongoose and snake.

It’s jolly fun to ruin the predictable pattern. Wipe the slate clean. Join the world as it is instead of as it used to be.

Let bygones be bygones.
Read 5 tweets
Aug 8, 2018
Try this today: Compliment your colleagues
- Notice what they do well
- Let patients know how lucky they are to see them
- Mention a time when they inspired you
- Appreciate their skill
- Celebrate their wonderfulness

@choo_ek @screamingmd @MDaware @HeartOTXHeartMD @laxswamy
After so much training and work, and daily labor to heal the sick, we tend to take each other for granted—nit pick and critique when we should be grateful for their remarkable talents and boundless efforts.

@DrJenGunter @DGlaucomflecken @emily_fri @adamcifu @drjenniferbest
Our patients often don’t know how hard we work, together, trying to solve their problems and make them feel better. Probably because we don’t mention it. It’s okay to notice and appreciate the lovely people we work with every day.

@cedrekmd @DavidJuurlink @DrEricLevi
Read 9 tweets

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