Steve Adelman, MD

Steve Adelman is a coaching and consulting psychiatrist and can be reached at his self-titled site, AdelMED.

Should all health professionals be teetotalers?

Physician

September 19, 2022

I recently published “Avoid ‘Shots in the Dark’ to Maintain Pristine Professional Boundaries” in Psychiatric Times to demonstrate how drinking alcohol in public may lead well-meaning licensed health professionals onto the slippery slope of boundary violations and costly career jeopardy. Across the United States, millions of doctors, nurses, and other licensed health professionals are permitted to perform the sacred work of healing others because we have been authorized to …

The horror of darkened hearts

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

April 20, 2022

In 2016, I published A Tale of Two Epidemics in the Harvard Health Blog. Sadly, our current pandemic has joined with health professional burnout and the opioid epidemic to gobsmack us with virus-infused spittle. Although doctors and nurses have stepped up heroically to save lives, many of us are depressed and dispirited. We’ve gotten sick. Some have died. Political nonsense has overshadowed reason – some have been …

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The horror of darkened hearts

I’m covering the practice of a “Dr. Feel Good”

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

March 9, 2022

Every now and then, a physician in a group practice or clinic setting disappears abruptly. Sometimes this is due to illness or a family problem; occasionally, the doctor has encountered a professional difficulty of one sort or another that precludes them from continuing to practice. The abruptly disappearing physician’s patients must be cared for by covering colleagues. This is especially important for patients who are being treated with controlled substances …

Doctors have had it with tall tales (and those who tell them)

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

January 21, 2022

The majority of my coaching clients are physicians. It isn’t easy for them these days. For the most part, doctors are rational types who believe in science, data, and facts. They have trouble understanding why so many of their patients seem to have signed on as extras in the unreality show of a skilled Pied Piper with a large and devoted following. How sad that so many people have followed …

Yes or no questions may be hazardous to healthy relationships

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

November 1, 2021

A common communication problem: Although important questions often have complicated answers, sometimes we ask things in a way that shuts people down. When someone poses a question that calls for “yes” or “no” as the expected answer, the person doing the asking often puts the other individual on the spot. When this plays out in a professional setting where there is a presumed power differentiaL, the questioner may unintentionally be sowing …

No one is in charge of the free-for-all that is U.S. health care

Steve Adelman, MD

Policy

September 14, 2021

During these solemn high holy days of repentance and reckoning, millions of Jews around the world beseech God to stop COVID-19 from spreading and ending lives. Although it can be soothing and reassuring to believe that the universe is governed by a supreme being who listens and responds to the prayers of sentient human beings, the last 19 months suggest to me that “no one up there is listening or …

Why it’s important to embrace dialectical thinking

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

July 22, 2021

“Embrace dialectical thinking, stupid!”

That’s the mantra I repeat when I catch myself getting worked up about a deep-seated belief, idea, or cause. Understanding the flip side of the equation helps me to neutralize powerful negative feelings like righteous indignation, bitter disappointment, and utter disgust with the incompetence of fill-in-the-blank.

Dialectical thinking is the ability to view an issue from multiple perspectives. Embracing it helps us recognize that it’s almost always possible …

The joylessness of harried medical leaders

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

July 1, 2021

How sad when a PCP calls, saying, “My chief warned me that if I don’t dramatically improve my productivity, I’m going to be terminated.” Such doctors are often patient-centered listeners who cannot bear to shift from healer mode to assembly line mode.

Some of these docs learn how to better balance healing with task completion; others make a beeline for concierge or direct primary care practices; still others …

Mansplaining in medicine and how to solve it

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

June 23, 2021

My friend (I’ll call him Dr. Mensch) reached out to me because he fears that a gender war is unfolding in his division. He is worried that current cultural concerns about gender equity are degrading the previously harmonious relations between male and female professionals on his team and that the mounting tension could have a negative impact on patient care.

Mensch told me that several female physicians, including residents and fellows, …

Are you a healer or a widget?

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

June 9, 2021

In the “Show-Me State” of Missouri, physicians receive their licenses from the Board of Registration for the Healing Arts. Seriously! This quaint term harkens back to a time when newly minted doctors had a relatively easy time realizing their desire to meld compassion, knowledge, and skill in order to relieve human suffering.

Armed with credentials suggesting that we have the right stuff to avoid doing harm, many of us are drawn …

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Are you a healer or a widget?

Organizations that nurture physicians’ careers can attract and retain the best doctors

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

June 3, 2021

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of assisting more than 2,000 distressed physicians – some with burnout, others with “rough edges,” still others with psychiatric conditions or misuse of drugs and alcohol. Some of these doctors were still functioning well; others had lost their licenses and their livelihoods, hoping against hope that they would somehow be able to return to medicine. Linking all these physicians is a shared passion …

The dissin’ physician: How does one become this way?

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

May 19, 2021

Patients mutter words like these under their breath as they leave the office or sound off when they get home. At the nurses’ station, feelings of resignation and exasperation are in the air. When is he ever going to stop acting that way?

Dr. Diss (a fictional physician archetype) is usually a man. He has always been this way, and his abrasive behaviors seem to be getting worse with time. His …

The practice of medicine is a marathon

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

May 12, 2021

We physicians often feel as though we are running up Heartbreak Hill. For many of us, the spring in our step just ain’t what it used to be.

Pictured above is Ethiopian runner Worknesh Negefa, the fourth-fastest female marathoner in history and the winner of the 2019 Boston Marathon. We all understand why Boston 2020 was canceled and Boston 2021 is delayed until …

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The practice of medicine is a marathon

8 tips to survive the marathon of a physician career

Steve Adelman, MD

Physician

October 20, 2014

Many physicians are discouraged by the state of medical practice in 2014. Maintaining job satisfaction and well-being for the duration of a decades-long medical career can be as daunting as completing an uphill marathon. In addition to keeping up with the explosion of medical knowledge and maintaining certification in your specialty, what concrete practices can you adopt to insure that you will make it to the finish line in good …

Against the medicalization of marijuana

Steve Adelman, MD

Meds

April 29, 2013

As an addiction psychiatrist, I have seen marijuana do far more harm than good. So with the medical use of marijuana in Massachusetts now legal under state law, what should physicians do?

Recently, I attended a chilling presentation from Dr. Kevin Hill, an addiction psychiatrist at McLean Hospital, at a meeting of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine on the topic “Medical Marijuana: What is the Proper …

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Against the medicalization of marijuana

Steve Adelman, MD

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