Your Mental Health First

On this podcast episode, Dr. Melanie Watkins offers general mental health tips that can benefit everyone. Try a few of these tips right now! These tips are solely Dr. Melanie Watkins’ opinion. This podcast episode and all of the podcast episodes by Dr. Melanie Watkins do not replace or provide medical treatment or consultation. You need to seek treatment with a licensed mental health professional in your area to get input on your individual situation.  This podcast is based on Dr. Melanie Watkins’ own experiences and training. Dr. Melanie Watkins does offer mental health coaching and career consultation. You can go to clarity.fm/mwatkinsmd to learn more. “Dr. Mel” is also on periscope, twitter, and blab @MWatkinsMD. Summary of Episode 004: Practical Ways to Put Your Mental Health First On this podcast episode, 004, Dr. Melanie Watkins discusses practical ways to put your mental health first! Breathe Go for a 5 minute walk or a 5 minute stretch Say YES to what is good for you. Say NO to what isn’t. Remember “NO” is a complete sentence Give a compliment to someone or for yourself. Do something nice for someone or for yourself. Prioritize the top 3 goals for the day, the rest can wait. Delegate what tasks you can, NOW. Listen to soothing music or nature sounds Think of 3 things you are grateful for right NOW Watch a movie Say a prayer Say a mantra “I am well” “I am blessed” Smile more often Don’t stay stuck in your story! Find healthy outlets Get more sleep Have fun like a kid! The post Episode 004: Practical Ways to Put Your Mental Health First appeared first on Your Mental Health First.

Here’s the final podcast on tips for mental health professionals. Make sure you listen to the first two episodes, Tips & Pointers for Mental Health Professionals and Good Self-Care and Being Aware! Tips for Early-Career Psychiatrists. This episode focuses on the issue of mentoring. As you advance in your career, medical students, pre-med students, college students, or psychology graduate students will ask you if you would be their mentor. Here are some tips to help you in mentoring. Summary of Episode 003: Mentoring, Time Management, and Self-Care It takes courage to ask someone to mentor you. Give young people credit for that and acknowledge the fact that they did put themselves out there. Be selective when it comes to deciding who to mentor.  There’s a lot of work in the mentor-mentee relationship. Ask why they want you to mentor them and what they hope to get out of the relationship. Do everything you can to support your mentees in their goals. We can solve some of these larger systemic issues by encouraging the best and brightest students to go into mental health careers. You are the one who sets the tone for how the mentoring relationship is going to work. Take your role as a mentor very seriously and have the students you work with take their role as mentees very seriously. Respect the time of your own mentors. Remember that they are taking time away from their families and businesses to help you. Keep mints or gum on hand for patients who have bad breath. You spend a lot of time close to your patients and it helps if both of you have fresh breath. Set a timer when doing mundane tasks like dictating progress notes. Make sure that during that time for that 30 minutes or hour that you are not going to be doing anything else other than your task. You can use the online countdown at e.ggtimer.com or set the timer on your smartphone. Think about the role you want your cell phone to have in your life. It may not be such a good thing to be accessible all the time. Try disconnecting completely when on vacation. It gives you time to do things that put your mental health first. Avoid intimate relationships with colleagues or another trainee or student. Sometimes it is inappropriate and sometimes it’s illegal and sometimes just not a good idea. Be very careful to whom you refer patients. If you are a psychiatrist, you are ultimately responsible for the care of patients you refer for therapy. You may not want to take every patient who calls your office or clinic requesting care. Even when a patient is able to pay, may be emotional cost and a lot of extra work in terms of your own mental health if the person isn’t a good fit for you. Always remember that you are the best role model for your patients in terms of making good self-care and good mental health a priority. Patients want a model for how they too can put their mental health first. This podcast doesn’t replace legal or medical consultation. You need to consult with an attorney and/or a physician or your professional licensing board in your state or area to determine what is most appropriate for your practice. Dr. Mel does offer mental health career consultation. You can go to clarity.fm/mwatkinsmd to learn more. Transcript of Episode 003: Mentoring, Time Management, and Self Care Here’s the final podcast on tips for mental health professionals. I hope you got a chance to listen to the other two episodes about ways in which you can put your mental health first and starting out in your mental health career. Something that comes up from time to time is a person who is not as experienced as you will ask you to be their mentor. You’ll find that the more experienced you are or seasoned, that’s the other term that we like to use, and the more that you advance in your career. They’ll be medical students or pre-med students or perhaps college students or psychology graduate students, who will ask you if you would be their mentor. Of course, you would want to encourage them for thinking about mentorship because it’s so important and many of us have been mentored. Our mentors played a huge role in what we ultimately became in our careers. However, again, your time being your most important daily asset. You have to be very careful how you choose to use your time. I’ll share a little bit of information about how I deal with this, especially if someone who has lectured all across the country about mentorship. I’ve spoken at University of Alaska Anchorage and Northwestern University. I’ve spoken at Stanford. I’ve spoken at University of Nevada, Reno. I’ve talked with young people about holding onto their dreams and overcoming the obstacles and moving forward with their career goals. I always, always, always mention mentorship. “Go out there and get a mentor.” It takes some guts and some courage, of course, to talk with someone who is pretty much a stranger or somebody you don’t know very well, but someone who has more experience than you do and to ask them to be your mentor. I want to give young people credit for that and acknowledge the fact that they did put themselves out there. They were vulnerable and they asked for me to help them out. They like something about me and what I’m doing, what I’m sharing, who I am, that they want to emulate. That they want to take in as part of themselves and move forward in their career goals. Of course, I only have so many hours in the day and I learned that I have to be super selective when it comes to deciding who I’m going to mentor. One of the things that I do is I have students commit to being a mentee. I have them earn the mentorship relationship. What do I mean by that? Again, I am one of the strongest advocates of mentoring and I’m the product of such great mentoring over the years. As much courage as it takes for someone to ask for mentor, there’s also a lot of work in the mentor-mentee relationship and I choose that role very carefully. I give a lot to that role as mentor. I want students to know that if I’m going to be their mentor, it’s going to require that we check in at least quarterly, but sometimes it’s more often and that depending on if they are applying to medical school or applying for residency. There’s times when we have to meet a little more regularly, but that I’m going to be giving them things that I want them to work on and I want them to be responsive. If I give them an article to read or if they are giving me an essay to give them feedback on, I want to know how they incorporated some of the suggestions that I made. I wanted to really be an active, evolving relationship or it’s not just we touched base randomly every now and then. It’s going to be very structured. One of the things that I do to make sure that they really want to be mentored by me is I ask them why they want me to be their mentor and what they hope to get out of the relationship and what’s their schedule like. Are they able to commit to meeting at these times? Meeting monthly or quarterly. Depending on, again, where they’re at in their training. I want to know more about what they hope to get out of the relationship. I found that over time some students feel a little bit intimidated by that. They just think, “Well, maybe I don’t really want her to be my mentor.” Because they know I’m going to hold them to task and I take it very, very seriously. The mentees that I have now will definitely tell you that I’m very involved as a mentor and I want to be informed in what’s going on because I take a lot of pride in my mentees moving forward in their careers. Especially if they are interested in becoming psychiatrist, I get so excited about that. I want to do everything I can to support them in their goals because I think some of the best and brightest student should be considering course in psychiatry. I feel that that’s going to be how we make a larger, bigger difference in mental health systems as a whole and how we can solve some of these larger systemic issues is by encouraging people to go into mental health careers. It’s a major reason why I started this podcast and this blog is because I feel so passionately about this. My mentees know that I feel that way. They know that if they’re going to be working with me that they’re going to have some additional homework and things to work on, and we are going to be having very intimate ongoing relationship. Think about that when you are asked to be a mentor. Think about how you want the relationship to be because you being the more seasoned or experienced person in the relationship, you are going to be the one who is going to set the tone for how the relationship is going to work. Again, this is your opportunity to impart some wisdom, some knowledge, some pearls, as we call them clinical pearls. Wisdom that can really impact future generations and take that role very seriously and have students who you work with take that role as a mentee very seriously. That can really lead to the most impactful, meaningful relationship over time. I’m still in contact with many of my mentors from when I was in college. One of my closest mentors is a woman named Alice Heiman who really looked out for me when I was 19 years old and I was a teen mom. I wrote about her in my book, Taking My Medicine, my journey from teenage mother to physician. That book is available in amazon.com if any of you are interested in reading my memoir. She made a such an impact on me when I was a young person and she still mentors me today. She does have suggestions that I follow-up on. I let her know. I try this out. This worked well. This didn’t work so well. There are some back and forth. I really value the wisdom and experience because I know she can make a lot of money in her business by providing the coaching and consultation that she provides to me for free. I respect her time tremendously. I know what she is giving me is something that is so meaningful that I really can’t place a price tag on it. It’s just that valuable to me. I’m very respectful of her time because I know she is a busy woman. When she takes that time out to mentor me and coach me, I know that she is taking time from her family or other things she could be doing with her business and so I honor that relationship. Again, when you take on a mentee, you want to think about this person being in your life for the long-term possibly and also that it’s really much more of a significant relationship than just, “Oh, I want to have a mentor—So-and-So might work, might be a good fit.” That kind of thing. I don’t look at the mentor-mentee relationship in a very casual way. This is my personal feeling on this and I love to get your input and comments about this on yourmentalhealthfirst.com This really isn’t a mental health professionals tip. It’s just a general tip, but I think it’s super important. I’ve always told my son, Jonathan, that if someone offers him a mint or gum, take it, because folks will rarely tell you if you have bad breath. Consider keeping mints or gum on hand just in case you don’t feel like being blunt, but it’s a good idea in general because we spent a lot of time being close to our patients. I just want to have pleasant breath. I usually keep gum or mints with me. It’s really nice too on a plane. I fly around a lot sometimes for work, sometimes for pleasure. It’s just a nice gesture. When I’m seated on the plane, I will usually pull out some gum and I’ll offer it to the people seated next to me who are in my row. Sometimes the pressure of the fight and so forth, the gum can be helpful. It’s just a nice gesture and I like the idea of all of us feeling connected. It’s just a nice way to be kind to people and also good to yourself. Sometimes I’ll even tell them that joke about my relationship for Jonathan and how I would tell him, if someone offers him gum to take it and will have like a little laugh about that. If they have children too, they’ll laugh with me about that one. I just think it’s a good idea to keep mint or gum on hand. Another tip is to use a free resource like e.ggtimer.com. It’s easy to get distracted, especially when things are winding down and it’s hard to do the mundane process or task of entering notes. Usually, on the inpatient unit, the structure of the day in the morning usually would have a meeting. We talk with the nursing staff and get sign out or report from the nurses. Primarily, I would work on getting the discharges taken care off and seeing some of the new patients and seeing the follow-up patients and dealing with any emergencies or acute issues that would come up in the unit. Then, the afternoon would mostly involve me documenting what occurred earlier on the day. Dictating discharge summaries or psychiatric evaluations or progress notes. This would be when I would have my slump. It would be after a lunch time and it’s kind of mundane just putting a notes into the computer or jotting down notes by hand. I found that setting a timer was really, really helpful. I would set this timer using e.gg.timer.com or even just choose the timer on your smartphone and make sure that during that time for that 30 minutes or hour that you are not going to be doing anything else other than your task. You can have a little reward or treat at the end of that task. For me, my little reward or treat would be to wander over to the break room and I can talk with some of the other staff who are working there or maybe have a little coffee or some tea. Then, I’d come back and do some more work. I set the timer and do some more work for an hour. Setting that clock on e.ggtimer.com for the amount of time that I went and to work on my notes was really helpful. I would pat myself on the back and give myself a little treat for doing 30 minutes or an hour of work, of uninterrupted documenting time. Now, when my mother first got us a cell phone years ago, I could never reach her and it would frustrate me so much and I would tell her, “You never have your cell phone on. I can’t reach you. Why do you even have a cell phone?” When I asked her why sincerely, I asked her why do you not have your cell phone on, she said, “Oh, this phone is for my convenience, not yours.” Those of you who have heard me talk about my mom or those of you who know my mom, know that she can be very blunt and to the point. Some of you may have read about her in my book, Taking My Medicine, which she was telling the truth. That’s real talk. This is hard to hear, but she had a really good point. Do you need to have your phone on 24/7? Think about what role you want your cell phone to have in your life. It’s maybe not such a good thing to be accessible all the time. I don’t think it’s a good model for patients. I don’t think it’s good for boundaries. I don’t think that it’s very healthy to constantly be vigilant and get these alerts, notifications and alarms, and constantly looking the text messages. I don’t think that it’s the healthiest thing for us to be that available all the time. I don’t want people to think that I’m available all the time. Again, consider using airplane mode or do not disturb and think about times that you might just want to have your cell phone off. When I’m spending time with my husband in the evening and I’m unwinding, sometimes I will just have my cell phone off and my son knows and my mom knows and my sister knows. My close friends know that they can reach my husband if they need to reach me, but chances are they are not going to go through the process of trying to text or call my husband to reach me. They probably going to know that, “Gee, Melanie is probably had a pretty long day and just needs some time to unwind.” I also do this on vacation. I love disconnecting on vacation for a while. It’s not to say that I don’t do social media. Sometimes along vacation I do, but I definitely I’m less available than I am when I’m at home in California. I like being able to have that break, especially on a cruise ship. I just got back from an amazing cruise to the Turkey and Greece. I loved being unavailable for part of it. I love the fact that I was on the cruise ship and that it will be really, really expensive for someone to call me on the cruise ship. That was the barrier for people to not be able to access me and for me to spend some time doing some things to put my mental health first. I read some books that I was looking for to reading. I watched some comedies that I really enjoyed and I got a chance to exercise and get massaged and not have to worry about cell phone messages and not responding to people right away. Just think about that. Remember the words of my mom. “The phone is for my convenience, not yours.” Think about who you are trying to make the phone convenient for. Are you trying to make it more convenient for other people to reach you or you want to make it convenient for you to be able to reach out if you need to reach someone? Think about that. Also, try to do your best to avoid intimate relationships with colleagues or another trainee or student. Sometimes it is inappropriate and sometimes it’s illegal and sometimes just not a good idea. If things don’t work out, you or the other person might have to look for a new job or training program. There could be legal or ethical consequences. At a minimum, even if it’s ethical, if things don’t work out, you will likely have some level of awkwardness. Yes, it could work out, but in the words of Chris Rock, “When you date someone, you are either going to break up or get married.” Now, which do you think is more likely to happen? The next tip is be very careful to whom you refer patients. Do your best to screen other professionals. Listen to the feedback that your patients give you if they have a good or not so good experience. This is very important. You might find out that a colleague has some availability, but who you refer to is sometimes your reflection on yourself, and so that person doesn’t have a good experience, they might think, “Hmm. I wonder what it is that Dr. Watkins thought about me that she set me to that person? Or why is this person saying something that I don’t think Dr. Watkins would agree with?” Again, remember as psychiatrist, if you are a psychiatrist, we are ultimately responsible for the care of whom we choose to refer patients to for therapy. Keep that in mind. You may decide that you want to only work closely with certain therapist that you know and trust, who keep you posted on how your patients are doing. Also too, you might think about when you have openings in your practice, which kind of patients might be sent your way. I had a colleague who sent me a very challenging patient and wasn’t really forthcoming as far as some of the struggles that this patient had and ended up being pretty difficult to work with this person and also to transfer the care. I learned a lot from that experience. I learned better questions to ask, the referring colleague, and also setting ground rules for my care of that patient. Also too, just keep that in mind that even though you might be starting out and you want to build your practice. You might feel very open to whoever is sent in your way. You have to think about the referral source who that person is coming from because if that person had a long relationship with the previous mental health provider, then you have to consider that in your work with the patient. You might have your own style which might be very different from who the person is coming from. There might be some personality issues that came up that led that colleague to send the patient in your way. You have to be very careful with that. Also too, you may not want to take every patient who calls your office or clinic requesting care. You are not obligated to in an outpatient setting. Inpatient, it’s very, very different. Psych emergency, it’s very, very different. You may not have to assume care of that patient. There may be some reasons why it may not be a good fit. Even though this person might financially be able to pay your rate and they are very committed and they are going to see you weekly for the next six months and pre-pay you for all of those visits. Even though, financially, that might seem beneficial, but there may be emotional cost and a lot of extra work in terms of your own mental health that might make that not such a great idea. Think about that and think very carefully before you decide to assume care of a patient. Think about what else is going to be involved and also the previous care that they received. Always remember that you are the best role model for your patients in terms of making good self-care and good mental health a priority. Your patients will pick up on a fact that you are stressed, you are overwhelmed or you seem flustered or hurried. You want to demonstrate that you take care of yourself, you love yourself, you make your mental health a priority. You make your physical health a priority. You have good boundaries. You are appropriately assertive. You have good communication. You provide yourself with good self-care. Always remember that patients will be looking at you in how you treat your own life and will be wanting to model for how they too can put their mental health first. Keep that in mind. Again, that’s something that’s not really spoken, but it’s kind of unspoken in a way and that it’s communicated even without a frank discussion about it. I also have to let you know that all of the mental health tips and pointers that I’ve given you, this episode and the previous two episodes. These are solely my opinion. This doesn’t replace legal or medical consultation. Of course, you need to consult with an attorney and/or a physician or your professional licensing board in your state or area to determine what is most appropriate for your practice. These are just general thoughts and feelings that I have based on my experiences and training. You might want to get some more consultation from people who are in your specific field as far as how they conduct themselves and how they run their practices. Part of the reason why I started this podcast and this website is that I wanted there to be more discussion and exchange in dialogue about some of these issues that come up that just aren’t addressed during training. Again, I really want the best and brightest students to go onto mental health careers. I think that’s going to be how we change the mental health system overall. If you are inspired by this and you want to learn a little bit more about mental health careers, I’m happy to talk about that, to blog about that, to tweet about that, to have podcast about that. Perhaps in the future, if there’s interest, I can have guest who can share their perspectives in being licensed marriage family therapist or a licensed clinical social worker or a psychologist or other psychiatrist and talk about their perspectives. I just want to get really good dialogue and discussion going so we can talk more about resources that are available to you. Also too, I want you to know that I do offer mental health career consultation. You can go to clarity.fm/mwatkinsmd to learn more. That’s all for this episode. I thank you for listening and looking forward to hearing more about you and your practice on yourmentalhealthfirst.com. The post Episode 003: Mentoring, Time Management, and Self Care appeared first on Your Mental Health First.

This podcast episode is a continuation of Episode 1: Tips & Pointers for New Mental Health Professionals.  These tips are specifically geared towards mental health trainees or people who are early in their mental health careers. This may be graduate students in psychology, post doc students, psychiatric residents, medical students interested in psychiatry, or psychiatrists who are early in their career, what we call early-career psychiatrists. The transcript of the podcast has been posted below this summary list. Summary of Episode 2: Awareness and Self-Care for Early-Career Psychiatrists Keep some goodies in your office. You spend so many hours there in your office at the clinic or at a hospital and you’ll need to have some things on hand. Be aware that colleagues and family members will ask you for advice. If you want to learn more about how to handle this, I’m happy to talk with you about it or if you’ve run into the situation I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. Be aware that some of your colleagues will have mental health concerns. Think about how you can be supportive when interacting with them. Be careful with what you print, fax, email, or copy at work. It may end up in the wrong hands. The best advice I can give you is don’t do it at all.  Remember that your work computer is likely monitored. Even though your supervisor may not find out how much time you’ve been spending on social media while at work, it really doesn’t set a good example. Choose your attire wisely. If you have a question about whether something is appropriate or not to wear to work, you probably shouldn’t wear it to work. Maintain a professional appearance even when away from the office. Sometimes we are observed by patients and patient’s family members and we don’t even know. Be careful when connecting with colleagues or patients on social networks. Adjust your privacy settings so that your personal life remains private. Eat breakfast. You never know what events or emergencies may come up that could prevent you from eating later. For women: buy dresses and pants that have pockets. Often times you cannot bring your purse on a psychiatric unit. Have your cell on only if you need it for urgent matters. If your hospital still uses pagers, carry you pager instead. It’s your hard-earned license and you need to be able to confidently defend all of the decisions you make regarding patient or client care. Remember that when you feel pressured to handle a patient’s care in a certain way. Work for and with people you respect. When looking at potential job sites, think about the workplace environment, not just the benefits, the location or the salary. Treat everyone at work with respect. The janitors, the maintenance staff, the cooks in the kitchen all play a vital role in keeping things going. Get your own therapy and get some supervision. You will have clients who will do things or say things that you never, ever, ever dealt with in training. Have a group of colleagues you can connect with regularly for fun outside of the facility. It’s really, really nice to have that to look forward to and to talk with people who know what it’s like to be a mental health professional. Transcript of Episode 2: Awareness and Self-Care for Early-Career Psychiatrists This podcast episode is a continuation of mental health tips for professionals. These are mental health tips that I wish I would have learned early on in my training. These tips are specifically geared towards mental health trainees or people who are early in their mental health careers. This may be graduate students in psychology, post doc students, psychiatric residents, medical students interested in psychiatry, or psychiatrist who are early in their career what we call early career psychiatrist. I’ve been in practice since 2008 and I’ve had variety of experiences both inside the hospital what we call inpatient care and outside of the hospital. In outpatient clinics, residential programs, et cetera. These are some tips, some pointers that I’ve learned over the years. I think it can be really, really helpful for you. One of the tips that I have is keep some goodies in your office. Protein bars, bottle of water, a mini fan. Special supplies, ladies. A light sweater in case it becomes too cold or some of your lunch accidentally ends up on your shirt. Having your goodies in your drawer can really make a difference and can make you feel comfortable when you’re in your office. You spend so many hours there in your office at the clinic or at a hospital so you want some goodies there. Also too, some condiments, salt and pepper, ketchup, things like that. Some extra utensils can be handy. Let’s say you go out for lunch and come back and you’re wanting to eat some more of your leftovers and you don’t have any utensils that can be really frustrating. Keep some of those things in your office. Also, I recommend some stickers. Something that I really enjoyed when I worked primarily on an inpatient psychiatric unit was that sometimes some of my colleagues or coworkers would bring their children by just for a few minutes so we have the acute psychiatric unit which was then one part of the hospital and then we also had our offices in another part. Sometimes in our professional offices, some of the staff might bring their daughter or son by for a few minutes. Usually a spouse would come by and want to have lunch with one of the psychologists or one of the discharge planners or social workers. I loved having something for the kids and so they knew when they come by Dr. Watkins’s office I always have some stickers for them. You might consider going to the 99 cents store, the Dollar Store and just having some goodies available for some of the kiddos who might end up stopping by. Know that as you continue on in your career, some of the staff at your clinic or at the hospital will ask you for advice and they’ll want to dive to personal information to you. I never learned about this in training. It’s very interesting what happens because you’re seen as the leader, you’re the psychiatrist or the psychologist. Obviously you help people with challenging situations all of the time. You’ll find that sometimes a nurse or a social worker or one of the other staff might just knock on your door and come on in and want to start talking. If you want to learn more about how to handle this, I’m happy to talk with you about it or if you’ve run into the situation I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. I do have a perspective on it that I’d be happy to share with you. You can leave a comment on my website, yourmentalhealthfirst.com or message me on Facebook, Facebook.com/mwatkinsmd or you can tweet @MWatkinsMD. Perhaps I’ll do a Periscope, a scope about this topic because this is something that many of us aren’t prepared for because there might be some people who want to talk with you about your suggestions or recommendations. I had a nurse asked me, “Dr. Watkins, what do you think I should take for hot flashes?” You have to be very careful with some of these situations. We can talk more about how to handle these situations. Feel free to reach out to me and we can discuss it. Also know that some of your colleagues will have mental health concerns. We are not immune. I’ve had colleagues who’ve had concerns with substance use, bipolar disorder, anxiety, personality disorders, depression. Think about how you would handle interacting with a colleague who has any of these concerns. How would you or could you be supportive? We can talk some more about this because this does come up from time to time and again it’s not something that’s talked about very much when we’re in training. We talk about patients or clients having these concerns but we don’t really talk about what we would do if one of our colleagues had a mental health issue that needed to be addressed. Let’s generate some discussion about this. Please go to yourmentalhealthfirst.com. Also, know that you have to be careful with what you print, fax, email, or copy at work. It may end up in the wrong hands so do your best to keep this to a minimum or the best advice I can give you is don’t do it at all. It’s very tempting sometimes just to send a quick fax or make some copies at work. You might forget and leave something on the copy machine and someone else might get access to it. You’re reported to your supervisor or it could be something that’s embarrassing that you don’t really want people to have access to. Who knows, maybe you’re copying your divorce decree or something at work and you don’t want people to know about all your personal business. You’re trying to look at your profile on match.com and someone else sees what you’re doing. Just be careful with some of the personal stuff at work. It’s best that you take care of these things at home. Also know that your work computer is likely monitored. People don’t think about this stuff. You have a log in and a password. An administrator can access that information and think about the sites that you search at work. Think about what is on your screen when a coworker walks by. Do you really want them seeing you updating your Twitter account and posting on Facebook and such? Even if your supervisor may not find out how much time you’ve been spending on social media while at work, it really doesn’t set a good example. It’s not a good image or representation of yourself for people to see that you’re constantly on websites and social media that aren’t related to work. Think about that. Also too, remember that not everyone is your friend but you can always be friendly with good boundaries. When you’re first starting out sometimes it’s hard to know who you can trust at work and who you want to share information with and who do you want to socialize with outside of work. You can always be friendly but just know that not everyone is going to be your friend of course. You don’t want to share personal information with people who aren’t at that appropriate level of connection with you. Just be conscientious and cautious about these things but you can always be friendly and have good boundaries. Remember that you always represent you regardless of where you work. Think about the message that you’re conveying. We’re going to talk a little bit more about how you dress, how you communicate, showing up on time, et cetera. You always represent you and so you want to represent yourself in the best way possible. This is really important, especially when you’re starting out because you’re setting the stage for how you will conduct yourself in the workplace. Yes, you will be judged by how you dress. It is what it is. Choose your attire wisely. This is one of my favorite topics and if you want to learn more about this I’m happy to blog about it especially for women. The length of your skirt, how you wear your hair, how much make up you’re wearing, how much perfume if any. I suggest that you don’t wear any perfume at all but you want to be very aware of these things and also have some colleagues that you can check in with at work too who have your back. Maybe your partner too can talk with you if there’s any question. My thought is if you have a question about whether something is appropriate or not to wear to work, you probably shouldn’t wear it to work. I tend to be pretty conservative and I don’t want anything that’s going to distract the patient or the client from their experience of me and with me. I definitely don’t want to give any material for anyone else to be talking about me so seeing something about how I was dressed unless it’s something positive of course I would love to get a compliment on how together I look, the nice colors and arrangement of my jewelry and so forth. It shouldn’t be anything that’s too flashy or too distracting. It really should be overall very conservative and professional and appropriate. Again, if you have any question about whether it’s appropriate or not to wear to work, you probably should save it for after dinner cocktails or something like that but not for the workplace. Again, you represent yourself wherever you go. Where I practice I don’t live in a small town but it is a city that you can bump into people from time to time. At Target, at Whole Foods, at Safeway and I have bumped into patients and I have bumped into family members of patients. After this happened a few times I just became more aware of how I dress when I was going out to the grocery store. When I was a medical student and I went to the grocery store, I’d wear scrubs. I actually wore scrubs all the time. I wear scrubs, I sleep in scrubs, I wore scrubs to study, I go to the grocery store in scrubs. It was like being able to wear pajamas 24/7. Then as I got older and I started to have these random interactions with patients and family members outside of the hospital or my private practice I realized how important it is that I maintain a certain appearance even in public. It’s not to say that I need to wear my office attire when I’m doing some shopping on the weekends but I don’t want to go out in public with sweatpants on, no make up at all and my hair not combed. I want to make sure that the basics are taken care of. I’m happy to talk about this more but again this is something that we don’t talk about in training but these things become real issues as you start off in your career. Again, this is something that we don’t learn about during training but very important for when you’re out there in the real world. Sometimes we are observed by patients and patient’s family members and we don’t even know. I remember when I was in psychiatry residency, one of my patient said, “Oh, I saw you and I think it was your son at Target.” I was thinking, “Oh my gosh, what was I doing at Target? Was I disciplining Jonathan? Was I buying underwear?” I couldn’t remember what I was doing at Target but it made me think I will probably be observed in a community and not even know that a patient saw me. I just want to be very aware of that. I want you to know about that too as you progress in your mental health training. Sometimes you’ll have to process what that experience was like for the patient because if they see you in a community they might be learning more about you than they would ever know about you in the office. They might have some thoughts and feelings about seeing you running errands in the community and some ideas about where you shop and who you are with and so forth. That might need to be processed in the coming appointment. We can talk a little bit more about this if you go to yourmentalhealth.com and just post a comment and let me know if you want to talk about this further I’d be happy to do so. Also, in this age of social media you’re going to find that your coworkers and colleagues might want to connect with you. They want to be Facebook friends or maybe some of your patients might find you online and they want to connect and be Facebook friends. If you’re not comfortable it’s okay. If you’re not comfortable and you can always direct them to your LinkedIn page. That’s my personal strategy. I’ll say something like, “I don’t usually connect with my patients on Facebook but I’m happy to connect with you on LinkedIn.” With a colleague, if you do decide that you want to be Facebook friends but you work closely together, you can adjust your privacy settings and you can decide how much interaction you want to have with them and how much access they have to your Facebook account. How much access they have to your photos and post and so forth. Always remember that you can adjust privacy settings as well. Be careful when you’re leaving your office or the hospital at night especially when it’s dark. You can ask security to escort you. You can ask a colleague to join you or walk with pepper spray or a flashlight. Don’t be distracted. This is not the time to be on your cellphone, walking in the dark going to your car at the far end of the parking lot. I would much rather that you have someone with you, a colleague or security escort. If you have to walk by yourself being very focused and walking quickly and looking straight ahead and just being very aware of your surroundings as you’re heading towards your car. This is something again that we don’t really talk about as professionals but you want to be careful when walking to your car at night time. Also to eat breakfast. Even if it’s a banana or yogurt or smoothie. I love smoothies. I love my Vitamix smoothies are awesome. I make them for my husband and for me in the morning. They are great. You may not get to eat lunch so at least start off with something in your stomach. You never know what events or emergencies may come up later. When I was in training sometimes this would happen, I would skip breakfast and then something would happen with a patient or there would be something urgent that needed to be taken care of and I wouldn’t eat. Then I would just be so hungry and then by the time lunch time rolled around I wouldn’t make the healthiest choices. I would choose cheeseburger, french fries, whatever they had in the hospital cafeteria because I just be so exhausted and so hungry that I just wanted to eat up anything that they have available that was quick to eat. Try to eat breakfast. Something quick. Something that you can eat on the go even if it’s a protein bar or banana and you won’t regret that later on, trust me. Getting back to clothing, for women, buy dresses and pants that have pockets. I love having pockets and I wish that I could have pockets sewn into all of my dresses that I have that I wear at work. As a psychiatrist, we don’t wear white coats. That’s pretty much the standard for both pediatricians and psychiatrists. There are several reasons for this and we can talk about that later but usually you’ll be wearing a nice dress or slacks or a skirt and a sweater or a blouse. Sometimes you may not have pockets. Now, when I purchase dresses or pants or skirts I’m looking at the types of pockets or if there are pockets because it’s very nice to have packets to put keys in. If you’re a psychiatrist or psychologist working in a hospital it’s nice to have your keys handy. Also just to keep a few items with you. I like to keep mints with me. Breath mints. That’s really nice to have that. We can just reach down and get what you need also pens too. I like to keep a pen handy because I never know when I might have to sign something. Think about that when you’re purchasing dresses or pants. Think about pockets. Remember, often times you cannot bring your purse on a psychiatric unit so we as women are used to having a little purse or clutch that we have our items then. When you’re on a psychiatric unit and you usually can have a purse or a bag or a tote. Having those pockets really can make a difference. Back to cellphones, there’s a reason why we generally do not allow patients to keep their cellphones with them on the inpatient unit. They are distracting. Try to have your cell on only if you need it for urgent matters. If you do need to have your cellphone on, have it on vibration mode or consider using a do not disturb or airplane mode. I like the respond with text feature a lot. I have three main respond with text responses. I have one that’s says, “Seeing patients now. Call you back.” I have another one that says, “Eating now, call you back.” A third one that says, “I can’t talk now. Call you back.” If your hospital still uses pagers, which one of the hospitals I work at still does, carry your pager instead. That way staff can reach you if there is something acute or urgent that comes up. If they use cellphones to reach you, then just be very aware when you need to have your cellphone on and be available versus not. Of course, when you’re seeing patients in private practice you really don’t want to have your cellphone on. It’s not fair to the patient. It’s not fair to yourself. I’m very protective of my time with patients in private practice. I make sure to have my cellphone off because I don’t want anything that’s distracting and I want to be truly present and focused on what my patient is saying. Earlier we talked about how when you’re working at the hospital or at a clinic, there will be people who will ask you for advice. Also too, know that friends, strangers, coworkers, family, they will also ask you for medical psychiatric or psychological advice just accept this will happen I have lots of tips and pointers for you in how to handle this coming soon on yourmentalhealthfirst.com. I’m happy to talk about this because again it’s something that we don’t talk about much during training. How do you handle it when you feel like you are the family’s psychiatrist or the family’s doctor or the family’s psychologist and you feel almost swamped and overwhelmed by the mental health concerns of others. Also too sometimes you find that when you’re in general public and people ask what you do, sometimes you might find that you’re reluctant to say that you’re a psychologist or a therapist or a psychiatrist because it’s almost like the flood gates open. All of a sudden people want to share and they want to talk about friends they have who are going through certain situations and stressors and so forth. They wanted to just pick your brain about things so I do have some thoughts about this and we can talk more about this and if you have experiences that you want to share about this or general questions please go to yourmentalhealthfirst.com. Also remember that it’s your license. It is you who will have to defend the decisions that you make. The staff working with you will likely not be meeting with you or with your lawyer if you’re sued. Always remember this so you might feel pressured to manage the patient’s care, the client’s care in a certain way. It’s your hard-earned license and you need to be able to confidently defend all of the decisions you make regarding patient or client care. Never forget that. It’s also important to work for and with people you respect. This may not be entirely in your control but when looking at potential job sites, think about the workplace environment, not just the benefits, the location or the salary. You want to think about the people that you’ll be working with day in and day out. Are these good people? Do you feel like you can respect them? Do you feel like they’ll respect you? Do they like what they do? Are they team players? Are they really cohesive, genuine and sincere? People don’t really talk about that when you’re thinking about your first job we don’t talk about looking at the people that you will be working with. I think this is a very, very important point. Be very kind to the folks who are doing more of the ground work than you are. Hospitals, clinics, offices do not function solely because the doctor has showed up. The janitors, the maintenance staff, the cooks in the kitchen all play a vital role in keeping things going. A surgeon could not operate if the lights in the operating room are malfunctioning. A client will not receive the confidential care they deserve if they are in office with the door that can’t close properly. A patient may not feel comfortable in an office that has scuffed walls or trash cans that are full. Everyone who works at a hospital or clinic is playing a vital role in patient care. My husband is a stationary engineer at a hospital in San Francisco. He does a lot of the skilled maintenance in the hospital and so this is something that I knew years before I met him, how vital and important his role is in the hospital. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. The same way that I greet the janitors, the same way that I greet a patient is the same way I create a colleague. It’s always, “Hi, how are you doing? How’s your day going?” I treat everyone consistently the same way and so I encourage you to not have a different way in which you interact with people based on their level of experience or seniority or how many degrees are after their name. Everyone plays such a vital important role in how the hospital functions and if we don’t have patients we don’t have a hospital. Right? If we don’t have patients we don’t have a clinic or a private practice. You really need to think about the roles that each person plays and treat them with the respect that they deserve. My next two tips are get your own therapy and get some supervision or someone to help you with making decisions regarding the care of your patients. Sometimes there are groups that you can join where you can talk about the cases and general terms without any potentially identifying information. You can work through your own issues and concerns, the counter transference that comes up during patient care or client care so it’s very important to get your own therapy. Know that you will have clients who will do things or say things that you never, ever, ever dealt with in training. You will have scenarios that will test your ethics and boundaries. You have to expect the unexpected but know that you can handle whatever comes your way. I can talk with you about this more. Let me know some of the challenges that you’ve had. Go to yourmentalhealthfirst.com. Lastly, have a group of colleagues you can connect with regularly for fun outside of the facility that you work and train at together. One of the things that I really enjoy that I started was this group called Drinks in the city. This is a group of my female psychiatric colleagues and we get together quarterly and we have fun in San Francisco or sometimes what we call the East Bay / Oakland / Berkeley area and we just talk and hang out and have fun and have good food and drink good wine. Just socialize and enjoy each other’s company and it’s really, really nice to have that to look forward to and to talk with people who know what it’s like to be a mental health professional. If you want to learn more about how you can start a group in your area I’d be happy to talk with you about that too. Again, thanks so much for listening. I’m so happy that you’ve taken this opportunity to put your mental health first by learning ways in which you can become the best mental health professional that you can be or just in general learning more about mental health careers. I’m happy to answer any questions that you have. I do reply to comments that you post or that you tweet. Thanks for listening and I’ll talk with you in the next episode of Your Mental Health First. The post Episode 002: Good self-care and being aware! Tips for Early Career Psychiatrists appeared first on Your Mental Health First.

In the first official episode of “Your Mental Health First,” Dr. Mel shares 8 ways new mental health professionals can have better mental health when starting a practice. Here are some of the things that Dr. Mel has learned since completing her psychiatric residency in 2008. Summary of Episode 1: Tips & Pointers for New Mental Health Professionals Give yourself time between patients/clients. This will reduce your stress level and give you time to jot down a few notes. Think about how patients will reach you. Is it really the best model to be available to your patients 24/7? Make sure you establish clear boundaries up-front and be sure to advise patients to call 911 in the event of a psychiatric emergency. Think like a patient. Are you providing an experience for your patients that you would recommend to a family member? Ask for clarification. If you aren’t sure what a colleague (or patient) means, repeat back what the other person has said and ask for clarification. Remember that your time is your most important daily asset. Some tasks are not a good use of your time. If you would not pay someone your own hourly rate to do the task, it’s a good idea to delegate it. It’s important to show up at staff events—even if you only stay for a few minutes. This helps demonstrate that you’re a team player. Get good at casual small talk with colleagues and co-workers. Connections are very important. Ask people about their families and interests. Never eat in front of patients or clients. Never. Learn the ground rules for meetings, especially if you hate them. There will be some meetings where your presence is not actually required. Ask your supervisor which meetings you really need to attend and whether cell phones are permitted. The longer you stay, the longer you stay. There’s always something to do. If you don’t set clear boundaries about when your work day ends, you’ll be there until midnight. Always be nice to your colleagues. They may be having a bad day, or you might, but if you behave badly, it will come back to you. Before you loan something out, put your name inside it and consider what would happen if you never saw it again. If you’re not willing to lose it forever, don’t loan it out. Transcript of Episode 001: Tips & Pointers for New Mental Health Professionals Welcome to the podcast. Today, I’ll be talking about general mental health tips and pointers for when you’re starting out in your practice. This podcast episode is primarily geared towards helping therapists, therapists in training, psychologists, psychiatrists, graduate students, and psychology, psychiatric residents, or anyone else who wants to learn more about mental health training and how they can take better care of themselves as they take care of others. I finished my psychiatric residency training in 2008, and I’ve been in private practice since 2010. I’ve also had a lot of experience working inside the hospital, what we call inpatient psychiatric care. That’s working with patients who have significant psychiatric concerns such that they require being in a facility or a hospital unit for a certain period of time to receive intensive treatment before being able to be discharged from the hospital and return to their lives. There’s a lot that I’ve learned along the way as a psychiatrist. One of the things I learned is when you’re seeing patients, give yourself some time in between patients. When you’re first starting out, you just want to power through and see as many patients as you can. You’re trying to build up your practice and you’re reluctant to say no to new patients and you want to try to make the most of your time that you have at the office or at the clinic, but I think it’s very, very important to take time in between patients. You can use this time to breathe, just take a few deep breaths. You can go for a walk around the building or the clinic. You can make yourself some tea, and you can also prepare some tea for your next client or patient. This can reduce your stress level overall and give you some time in between patients to process what happened with the previous patient before seeing the next patient. Sometimes I like to jot down a few notes in a journal. I had a patient who recently told me about Bulletproof Coffee. I’d never heard about that. She told me a unique way in which she makes her coffee in her Vitamix, and I thought that was pretty interesting and I wanted to see if I might want to try that out or learn more about it online. After our session, I spent a few minutes jotting that down and thought about when I would go over to Whole Foods to get some of the ingredients and try it out. By the time I saw the next patient, I felt ready for the next patient and I had wrapped up my thoughts about the previous patient. If you go, go, go from patient to patient to patient, then at the end of the day, you’re spending time and catching up on notes and stressed and feeling tense and overwhelmed. One of the pieces of advice that I give new trainees is to always factor in some time for yourself in between patients. This is a great gift to yourself and also something that you can model for your patients. Now I’ll be using the term patients and clients interchangeably. Psychologists and therapists tend to call the folks that come in to see them clients, and psychiatrists tend to call the people who come in patients, but I’ll use these terms interchangeably. Basically, these are the people that have come to us requesting services and who we’re trying to serve and help them out in their daily lives, so teaching them how to deal with stressors or conflicts in their family, how to work through depression symptoms, anxiety, overwhelm, bipolar disorder, substance use. Even though we might call those people who are seeking our services different terms, whether that be patient or client, I’m going to use those terms interchangeably throughout the podcast. The next tip is to think about how patients will reach you. There are so many ways nowadays for us to be contacted. People can e-mail us, text us, use voice mail, Skype, FaceTime, social media, Periscope, Twitter, et cetera, and I want you to think about it. Is it really the best model to be available to your patients twenty-four/seven? I don’t think it’s a really good idea. Sometimes it can be very convenient for a patient to text you, but you don’t want to make it so convenient that they’re texting you frequently or that they might abuse that, and that can happen. If they’re going to be using a certain means of communication such as text messaging or emailing, you need to have some good boundaries around that. I think it’s important to lay out some ground rules when you first see the patient. You might want to talk about this on the first visit and say something like, “You can reach me via text, but only for emergencies,” or, “I only check e-mail two times during the day, so if it’s something more urgent, then you need to reach me on my cell phone or the office line,” or letting patients know that you might do Skype sessions if they’re not able to come in or that you don’t do Skype sessions or you don’t do telephone sessions. That’s really important, because you don’t want the patient to feel frustrated or upset if down the road you decide that you don’t like the fact that they’re texting you at 11:00pm needing a refill. I think it’s important to set those boundaries up front, and most people get it. They know that their mental health provider is not available twenty-four/seven, but sometimes it can be abused. Also, you don’t want to get into any legal or sticky situations where the patient is needing some acute or urgent help and you’re not available. For that reason, many mental health professionals will have a message on their voice mail greeting basically saying that in case of emergency, please call 911. That’s a bit of a legal disclaimer and letting patients know that you’re not available twenty-four/seven and that if there is a true psychiatric emergency, they need to call 911 or go to their closest emergency room and receive psychiatric treatment. I’m happy to talk more about this on my website, YourMentalHealthFirst.com. You’re welcome to reach out to me and let me know if you want to talk more about this, because this comes up pretty often, especially as you’re starting your practice. You may want to be available in many different ways because you want your patients to be able to reach you if they need you, and you want to appear as being approachable and warm and open, but you have to put your mental health first and you have to have some good boundaries around that. The next tip is to think like a patient. Okay? When we’re in training, we’re not really taught about the business aspect of having a mental health practice. One of the things that I’ve learned is that you really need to think about what the patient is looking for in terms of mental health treatment, what they want from their provider. The term provider, professional, again, I’ll use those terms interchangeably as well. Basically, the patient has a choice usually in terms of who they want to provide their mental health treatment. Sometimes they might be restricted to the people that are on their insurance panel, but even within that insurance panel there might be some options. You want to create a good experience for the patient, so my personal gauge is that if this person was a family member, what would I want for that person’s care? That’s what I’m saying when I say, “Think about the patient and the patient’s experience of you and with you and the environment.” If you have an aunt and your aunt was going to see someone like you, what would her experience be like? Would it be very difficult for her to interact with you? Would the environment be warm and inviting to her? Would there be too much paperwork that would be potentially off-putting to your aunt? Just think about if this was a family member and they were seeking mental health treatment or services, is what you’re providing reasonable and practical and warm and inviting? The next tip is specifically for psychiatrists and psychiatric residents. One of the things that people learn early on when they’re in medical school and studying to become a physician is that nursing staff are very, very important people. Nurses can make your life great or make your life miserable. You always want to be respectful to nurses because they’re on the front lines, and I feel very protective of the nurses that I work with. I want to make sure that they feel safe and that they feel taken care of and that they feel empowered to make the decisions for the patients, and that they can talk with me as a colleague so we can work together to ultimately provide the best care for the patient that we can. When in doubt, ask for clarification. Nurses are trained to get clarification, and I never mind these requests because it ensures that we are on the same page regarding patient care. When talking with nursing staff, you want to make sure that you’re on the same page, and if you’re not sure in general about what someone has communicated to you, repeat back what they’ve said. This isn’t just in talking with nursing staff, but this is talking with occupational therapists and physical therapists and your medical colleagues and so forth. It’s always a good idea to get clarification. Oftentimes, when I’m not sure if I’m really hearing what the other person has to say, I will just repeat what they said, and I speak up. As a student, given what I know now, I would have asked for clarification about some things that I was a little bit unsure about. I think in the past when I was a student, sometimes I was a little bit intimidated or reluctant to ask for clarification because I would question myself, “Why don’t I get it or why don’t I understand this?” Now, as an adult with much more experience, I’m very quick to say, “I need some clarification on this.” This is something that nurses are very, very skilled at doing, at making sure that everyone is on the same page. When in doubt, ask for clarification, repeat what the other person has said so you can both be on the same page. Something else that’s very important is remembering that your time is your most important daily asset. Much more than the amount of money in your pocket, your time is the most important daily asset, so delegate effectively so that you can have more time to do what you want to do. Other professionals will talk about their hourly rate and they think about how much money they make in an hour and tasks that need to be done. They might say, “Hmm, is it really the best use of my time, given what my hourly rate is, to do these other tasks?” One of the things that I learned was to delegate. I have eight women … Yes, that’s eight, eight women who I affectionately call my survival sisters, and I delegate a lot of tasks to them. I have a personal assistant who is like my gal Friday. I have a virtual assistant who’s online, and she lives in Las Vegas and she helps me with all my research. I also have a bookkeeper. I have my receptionist for my practice. I have my social media gal who helps me stay on top of things with my Twitter account and Facebook and Periscope and such. I have a transcriptionist that I work with. I have several different women who help me out so that I’m able to provide the care that I want to be able to provide for my patients and also I can do the things that strictly require my education and my ability to do. Coming up with this content for this podcast, I was the person who decided to jot down my thoughts about what I wanted to share with you and that I have that information transcribed, and now I’m able to talk with you about these important topics. It’s not the best use of my time for me to actually sit down and type out everything I want to say, because I’m not the fastest typist in the world. Someone else can do that job much more effectively and easily than I can, so I happily pay her money to do that for me. Having people that you can delegate tasks to can work wonders. You really have to think about what your hourly rate is and would you pay someone else that amount of money to do a task that is pretty straightforward and easy to do, such as transcription or running errands. For me, I’m very happy to pay these women to do some of these other tasks for me, because it’s generating income for them. They don’t mind doing these tasks and they feel like they’re really helping me and also helping themselves and they’re able to work from home and they have flexibility. It’s definitely a win-win. I’m happy to be able to delegate tasks to others. Something that comes up from time to time when you are early on in your training, perhaps you’re a graduate student or you’re a postgraduate student or you’re a psychiatric resident or maybe a new attending, there’ll be special events or occasions that come up on the unit or at the clinic. I remember early on in my career, I would go to so many of these events and then I just didn’t want to go anymore, because it seemed like everyone was having a birthday all the time and there was work that I needed to do and there was always something. There was a retirement breakfast or a birthday luncheon or a new hire celebration, and I would get so frustrated because I was constantly asked to go to these events. What I realized is that it’s actually very important for you to show up, so do show up. I know, I know, everyone is busy and yes, does there really need to be yet another event to go to on the unit? This is an opportunity for staff to connect and feel cohesive and to have celebrations, and it’s really important for overall morale, so do show up. You can stay maybe just a few minutes, that’s okay. You can offer to bring in a goodie. If you don’t have time to make homemade cookies, which many of us don’t have time to do that kind of thing, you can bring in a goodie. This helps everyone overall, let’s them know that you’re a team player. You don’t want to be that person who never goes to any of the special events on the unit or at the clinic. Do show up. You’re not expected to stay there the whole time, but just say a few kind words and share a goodie and munch on a few of the snacks that some of the staff have provided for you and just be an overall good team player. Trust me, you won’t regret that. What you don’t want to do is be that person who is in their office the whole day and they never come out and socialize with staff. There is a way that you can maintain your professionalism and have good boundaries. You don’t have to get into some of the small talk or even any gossip that might come up. You can just stay for a few minutes and then you can get back to your work, but definitely do show up. The next tip is a follow-up on that one. Get really good at casual small talk with new colleagues and coworkers. Be really, really interested in what others have to say. It makes the workday more fun, and it’s nice to be connected with your colleagues and coworkers. One of the things that I really prided myself on was that I always knew a few things about each nurse. I could tell you whether the nurse was married or single, if he or she had children, roughly how old the children were, knowing where they lived, if they lived close to the hospital or if they had a commute. This was very sincere. I wanted to know about them, and they also got a chance to know a bit about me. They knew that I was a single parent and that I had a son in high school and that I was new to that area. Those connections are really important. You don’t want to have a big wall up or a barrier where people feel like they can’t really connect with you. It’s okay to share a few bits of information about your background and your interests, and that will also open others to share a bit about their lives as well. I think that really helps to make the work environment so much more pleasant and enjoyable, and should there be an emergency or an issue that comes up, you know that you have people who will have your back. Take the time to establish these good relationships with your colleagues and your coworkers. The next tip, never eat in front of patients or clients. Do I really need to say anything else about this one? It’s pretty self-explanatory. Okay. Meetings, I hate meetings. I hate meetings about meetings. I hate meetings that are thirty minutes. I hate meetings that are two hours. I hate all types of meetings, and I hate surprise meetings where you’re going about your day and then all of a sudden, the supervisor says, “Let’s have a huddle about this.” That just drives me up the wall. One of the things that you want to know about are the ground rules for meetings and how often meetings will occur. You want to be as prepared as you can for the meeting and know if you really actually do need to show up for the meeting. Sometimes there would be meetings that would take place and I was invited to come to the meeting, but it wasn’t really required. I think that sometimes some of these meetings, they thought, “Oh, it would be nice to have Dr. Watkins join in,” but it really wasn’t the type of meeting where I was asked to provide any significant input, or it was a meeting about some larger issue that I really wasn’t directly involved with but they just wanted to give me a heads-up, so to speak, but it was not the best use of my time. You really want to think about the meetings that will be taking place at your clinic or on the unit and if you do need to attend. Of course, if your supervisor expects you to be there, if it’s a peer review, of course, of course you have to be there, but I found that there were several department meetings that sometimes I really didn’t feel that I needed to participate in. Over time, I learned to ask my supervisor if he or she expected me to attend the meeting, and sometimes my supervisor would say, “No, it’s optional.” I didn’t even know that some meetings were optional. Check in with your supervisor on this one, because there may be meetings that are taking place that you might be invited to but they’re not really expecting you to be there. They just want to let you know generally what’s going on. If that’s the case, of course, you can always have access to the minutes or the notes from the meeting or meet with the meeting coordinator and just let him or her know that you would like to just get an overall sense of what occurred in the meeting so that you can be up to date, because that time that you’re spending in that meeting, if it’s not really crucial that you be there, that could be time for other things that are really important for you to take care of, like direct patient care or working on your notes, or arranging family meetings, or discharge planning, or other things that need to take place in a busy inpatient unit or at the clinic. Maybe it really isn’t the best use of your time to be in a meeting when you could be providing direct patient care. Something else to ask about before going to a meeting is if there are cell phones allowed, because sometimes I will see colleagues who are frantically texting during meetings and I wonder if they are really paying attention to what’s being said in the meeting or are they jotting down notes about the meeting. You kind of want to know what the standards are for the meeting. Is it expected that people can bring their cell phones or is that frowned upon? Personally, what I would do when you’re first starting out in training and you’re going to meetings, don’t have the cell phone out at all unless your supervisor is asking you to pull it out of your bag for a particular reason. If it’s not being requested that you bring your cell phone out for any particular reason, do not have your cell phone out. It sends a bad signal to the other meeting attendees, because, like I just said, you don’t know if the person is distracted, if they’re updating their Facebook page or they’re taking notes about the meeting. It’s just unclear. Definitely know what the policy is about cell phones when you’re first starting out. Don’t have your cell phone out. Also, too, another good question to ask is how long you’re expected to be there. Maybe you don’t have to be at the entire meeting. Maybe it’s just really important for you to be there for the first thirty minutes of the meeting or the last thirty minutes of the meeting. Something that I have done when I’ve had meetings with families and let’s say it’s a really busy day, I’ll ask the social worker to get the meeting going, and then I’ll jump in at the end of the meeting, like the last fifteen minutes or so. The social worker can answer a lot of the general questions about how the patient is doing, and then I can come in as the doctor and talk about any particular medical or psychiatric concerns that come up. Sometimes it’s not necessary for two mental health professionals to be there at the meeting at the same time. Oftentimes, family members are reassured in knowing that the doctor will be coming in, and they get it. They understand that the doctor can be pretty busy during the day, but they do like the idea that the doctor will be joining in on the meeting. Sometimes having that structure can really be helpful. Also, too, some of the nurses will really help me out of meetings going longer than expected. They will page me. They will page me out of the meeting, and that’s really nice because sometimes a meeting can go over, yet there’s other things that need to be done and they’ll just send me a page and that will be an alert or reminder to me that I need to wrap up because there’s other things that I need to take care of. I’d be happy to talk with you more about how to have the most effective meetings on an inpatient unit or at your clinic. Feel free to shoot me a message on YourMentalHealthFirst.com. I’d be happy to talk with you more about that. One of the things we have in medicine is the longer you stay, the longer you stay. I remember when I was first trying to describe this concept to someone outside of medicine, basically the message is there’s always something to do. You have to have really good boundaries for when the workday will end. If you’re thinking that you’re going to leave work at 6:00pm, chances are something’s going to happen around 5:45. There’ll be an acute issue with a patient or with a client and you may end up having to stay longer. Now when I was first starting out, it was very difficult for me to have that good boundary because, let’s say, 5:45 something would happen. Let’s say a family member would show up and wanted to know about what was going on with their loved one, and I’d really want to talk with them, but then I’m thinking, “Oh, my gosh, I have to get home to my son, Jonathan. I promised him I’d be coming home, but then it won’t take me that long to talk with the patient’s family member. Maybe I can squeeze this in real quick.” Then I’d feel rushed and tense and so forth or something would come up with a patient and I would be reluctant to hand off the patient’s care to the doctor who would start covering at 6:00pm, the nighttime doctor. I found myself with this big struggle, so over time I learned that I really need to have good boundaries for when the workday would end. It’s not fair to my son for me to stay in the hospital longer and longer and longer, because he can’t advocate for himself and say, “Mommy, I really need you to come home.” I need to be a good model, too, to my patients and also my patients’ family members and telling them that I really do want to be there for them and help them out, but I also have to be respectful of other commitments that I have. Usually, what I do then if something comes up later in the day, I’ll let them know that I want to help them out and it’s best for me to find a time to work with them and talk with them about the issue in the morning, because at that time, I really need to get home and I do try to pass it along to my colleague. In medicine, we really try to do everything we can to be responsible for our patients and finish up everything that needs to be done for our patients, but sometimes what can happen is you’re so involved with the care of the patient that it’s very difficult to have those good boundaries. It is okay to sign out to the covering doctor at the end of your shift. There will always be a reason to stay late, so I don’t want you to make that a habit. The next tip is to be good to your colleagues, yes, even when they have a bad day. It will come back to you, so even if your colleague is snippy or just irritable and they’re not being their usual nice, collegial self, just still be nice to them because you also want that break, too, if you have a bad day. If you loan something to someone, consider putting your name on it or inside of it and consider what will happen if you never see it again. This can happen with books, pens, and money. If you do loan out an item to a colleague or a patient, just consider this fact, that you may never see this item again. Also, it becomes awkward to ask for your item back months later, and you might even forget that you loaned it to someone. Be very conscientious about what you choose to loan out to a colleague, because it does become kind of awkward later on. Also, too, with money, just consider it a gift. Even if someone asks, “Hey, Bob, can I borrow five dollars from you?” unless you’re willing to just let that five dollars go, don’t loan out the money. Usually, if I have it and I’m feeling generous, I will give that money to a colleague, but I just kind of consider it a gift and I never expect to get it back, because it would just be too awkward to ask for it back. You don’t want to be seen as petty, and you never know, you might run out of money and you might need to borrow a few bucks from somebody. Just think about it being in a general pool of funds and don’t worry about asking for that back. Be very aware that if you loan something that’s pretty valuable or expensive, like a textbook, let’s say, you have to think about what may happen if you never get it back. All right. This completes this part of the tips and pointers for mental health professionals. I hope that you learned some things about how you can put your mental health first and how to work effectively with colleagues and with patients when you’re starting out in your career. I would love for you to say in contact with me. That’s all for now. Thank you for listening. The post Episode 001: Tips & Pointers for New Mental Health Professionals appeared first on Your Mental Health First.

In this episode, Dr. Mel continues her discussion of the factors that mental health professionals need to consider when setting up a private practice, particularly if they are already working in a hospital or clinic. Here are 8 more tips to help you move forward. Know why you want to start a private practice. A private practice can allow you to provide a better level of care, as well as to make more money. Try it out before you commit by providing coverage for a colleague who is on vacation or leave. You do need both malpractice insurance and an appropriate business license. Your office should reflect who you are and make patients feel at home. Dr. Mel provides cold water and fresh flowers in her office. Provide magazines in the waiting room and keep business cards on the counter. Having a web presence is very important. One new patient found out about Dr. Mel by asking Siri. Your first website doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it does need to provide contact details and basic information about your practice. It’s also a good idea to have a presence on major social networks and review sites. Provide new patient intake forms. It’s good to provide a version that patients can fill out before coming to the office as well as providing one to fill out in the waiting room. Always be able to provide the reason you need any information you ask for, and include notifications about your policies. Insurance Coverage. When you’re first starting out in private practice, you may be able to add your private practice coverage onto the policy you use for work. Have a collegial relationship with your colleagues. You need someone to cover for you when you go on vacation, and you will need to refer some patients to other providers. Private practice can be isolating. You won’t be able to walk down the hall to consult a colleague when you’re out on your own. For some people, a combination of private and hospital work provides the best options. The post Setting Up a Private Practice (While You Still Have Your Day Job), Part 2 appeared first on Your Mental Health First.

In this episode of Your Mental Health First, Dr. Mel talks about how to start a private practice while you still have your day job. She breaks down the process of setting up a private practice as a mental health professional into 7 easy steps. Here are the first seven things to consider when starting a private practice. Determine what sets you apart from others in private practice (your niche). Decide what your hours will be (e.g. weeknights and weekends). Choose an appropriate location for your office. It should be handicapped accessible and located in a safe, well-lit area. Decide whether you are going to take insurance. A fee-for-service is less complicated to manage. Be cautious about sharing your plans for a private practice with work colleagues—at least before you talk to your supervisor. Know when to hire an assistant for your practice (sooner is usually better). Decide how, and how often, you will communicate with your private patients (SMS, email, Skype, phone). To hear 8 more tips to help you move forward in starting a private practice, listen to Part 2. The post Starting a Private Practice (While You Still Have Your Day Job), Part 1 appeared first on Your Mental Health First.

Host Paul Gilmartin interviews Dr. Mel about personality disorders, medication, problems in the mental health system and mental health in the black community in Episode 240 of The Mental Illness Happy Hour. About the Mental Illness Happy Hour Podcast Named one of the Top Ten Podcasts of 2011 by The Onion’s A.V. Club! The Mental Illness Happy Hour is a weekly conversation between a guest and comedian/host Paul Gilmartin, focusing on the battles we have in our heads and the damage we feel. From medically diagnosed conditions to everyday compulsive negative thinking. This podcast is not a substitute for professional mental help, it’s more like a waiting room that hopefully doesn’t suck. Subscribe to The Mental Illness Happy Hour in iTunes. The post Dr. Mel Interviewed on The Mental Illness Happy Hour appeared first on Your Mental Health First.