Tag: perception

Vacation! Oh how I missed you!

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N. 8 little letters but such a powerful word. A word that is supposed to fill you with anticipation, joy, and a sense of contentment. Well, I gotta tell ya. I cannot fully remember the last vacation when I wasn’t either in the hospital or facing some severe health diagnosis. There was no joy or relaxation involved. The word took on a whole set of new meanings: regret, isolation, and sadness.

I am so so thankful to report that now, I am actually on vacation for the first time in a long time when I am not in the hospital or facing something imminently terrible. I am so so grateful. I get to sleep in my own bed, not tethered to machinery or ivs. I get to look out my own window and see my beautiful yard and hear the birds sing instead of staring at the same old stretch of hospital cement and brick.

Am I planning any big trips? No. It’s not safe yet. But who cares? I am out of the hospital and getting healthier every day. I get to see my family. I got to go to my little cottage the other day and just soak it all in…the water, the wildlife, my little pontoon boat. It was so wonderful. Could I swim or anything yet in the lake. No, but again, who cares. I was just thrilled to be there.

I guess my bottom line is that a the meaning and the significance of a lot of things has shifted in these last 6 months. Well, the last three years actually with multiple bouts of cancer and other health issues. The importance of that is multi fold. I am learning how to cope with different things in different ways. I am re learning what is really important in life and I am relearning how to navigate through it. I would encourage everyone to take a step back and reevaluate your life, your surroundings and what’s the most important to you even before something awful happens. It could just help save your life and help you move forward after.

Dr. Katz

ANY publicity is good publicity? I am not buying it.

bad publicity cartoon

I am forever hearing the adage, “Any publicity is good publicity” or “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” This has been grounded into my head as a business owner for as long as I can remember. My interpretation of this statement is that it means that any attention is better than no attention. It implies that even if something is deemed bad, wrong, incorrect or immoral, it only draws more attention to it as a sort of forbidden fruit, somehow making it even more desirable. I just don’t think that this is universally applicable.

It may work in the case of a movie star or a rock musician. We hear something potentially unfavorable about them and it intrigues us and makes us want to know more. This increased interest is basically risk free because these people are not likely to impact our lives in any significant way. They are just on a screen or a concert stage that we watch to escape real life for awhile. If they turn out to be a terrible person, so what? We can choose not to watch their movies or concerts or continue to do so with no real consequence either way. On top of that, they probably don’t really care one way or the other what we think. They don’t really need to.

The exact opposite is true for me in the medical field. If someone leaves a bad review for me on Google or Health Grades or worse yet, makes a terrible comment on one of my social media posts, I just can’t see that bringing me any sort of attention that I would actually want. I am fortunate in that this happens rarely, but when it does, I can’t stop thinking about it. I find myself researching who the individual might be and even attempt to reach out to see what I can do to remedy the situation or ease their pain, even if I realize that I have never actually seen the person. This happens all too often. After extensive research I realize that I have no record of this person and yet it still haunts me. These kind of hurtful reviews or comments do not achieve anything productive that I can think of. In fact, depending on the vulnerability of my current patient population, it can potentially affect their perception of me as well. There are people that truly take in whatever is in print as fact, without questioning it’s validity. The initial questions that are raised by these types of feedback can potentially cause ripples of unease that can spread through patients like wildfire. No good can come of that. No one wants to hear something bad about their doctor…ever. You have to have complete trust in someone who is so intimately involved in your life. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain by entrusting a potentially bad or dangerous physician. No one finds themselves seeking some infamous physician who botched a procedure just because they saw them on Dateline or something. It just doesn’t work that way. Have a great day everyone.

Dr. Katz