Category Archives: culture

Social Media Accounts I Recommend for Health and Fitness

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Friends, how do you use social media? Is it a major source of information? Confusion? Connection? Thought provocation? Stress?

This year I find myself recommending specific accounts on Instagram regularly, so I thought I’d share them here on the blog. This post covers health and fitness entities I follow and recommend. I will share other topics in future posts. Which accounts do you follow and how do they serve you? At seven accounts, the list below is far from exhaustive. But whenever anything from each of these accounts emerges on my feed, I engage, and I am never disappointed. I have no financial or other interests in any of them.

The complexity of our world accelerates exponentially now, and we all have to learn how to filter and integrate all kinds of media assailing us all the time. Sensory overload is real and detrimental, and our management skills lag far behind their requirement. These accounts, in my opinion, help us cut through misinformation, inviting and guiding us to think for ourselves. They facilitate self-efficacy, which protects us from falling victim to those who would prey on our fears and uncertainties. I hope this list proves helpful and empowering:

Built With Science
Founded by Jeremy Ethier, whom I found on YouTube for his excellent videos on how to lift heavy in the gym safely, BWS is my first online recommendation for evidence-based and accessible information on fitness and high level performance nutrition. It is truly founded in science, applied honestly and practically. Posts include primary literature citations, which I have not seen anywhere else. I did the two week free trial fo the BWS app, and I would use it if I were not already in love with my gym.

Nikki Georgeson
Nikki is a former coach at my gym. She programs both exercise and nutrition, and I find her to be knowledgeable, honest, practical, and inspiring. Her advice is both relatable and evidence-based. Like BWS, Nikki’s posts educate, inform, encourage, and do not sugar coat or make false promises.

Sean Casey
This young man impresses me to no end. He shares his own health transformation, and now leads an international community of folks from all walks of life. Like Jeremy and Nikki, his approach is one of self-efficacy, practicality, and community support. His posts are focused but nuanced, acknowledging the complexities and challenges of living healthy in an unhealthy world. The Glean app also has a free trial period which I highly recommend.

Kasey McKenney
Kasey is the Director of Treatment at Ethos Training Systems in Chicago, my own gym. I share patients with Kasey and the Ethos team regularly. I most appreciate that Kasey brings together Traditional Chinese Medicine (which she has both mastered and can actually explain to the rest of us) and sports physiology. She practices a truly integrative and holistic form of physical medicine, and her posts and stories reflect this philosophy.

Will Flanary, Dr. Glaucomflecken
Follow Doc Glauc for humorous and spot-on parodies of medical subspecialty personalities, lay explanations of the latest scientific research published in the New England Journal of Medicine as well as random medical topics we all had to study for our board exams, and strong advocacy for a more just and transparent healthcare system.

Dr. Jen Gunter
I need to update my menopause post from 2024, but for now let me just recommend that we all follow Dr. Gunter. Subscribe to The Vajenda on Substack to receive her weekly newsletter on all things women’s health. Her most recent piece, “The Attention Economy of Menopause Medicine“, describes how the pendulum of menopause awareness and advocacy has now swung past useful education and application and well toward predatory hypercapitalist moneymaking. Her opinions are her own, they are strong, and they are evidence-based. She cites primary research literature and provides excellent context for her arguments and recommendations.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, ACOG
It is not an overstatement that women’s health is under threat in the United States. ACOG is the medical professional society at the forefront of protecting and advocating for autonomy and access for women and their healthcare teams. ACOG posts about policy and educates about what is at stake for women when legislation and judicial position changes.

What Anger Makes Us

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Trail near The Lodge at Whitefish Lake, Whitefish, Montana

Dear Readers,
I wish you all the curious, thoughtful, open, and loving friends like I have!
The same person I mentioned in “What Does Love Make Us?”, Sean, helped inspire this post tonight, coaxing insights to emerge just by being his curious, thoughtful, open, and loving self. Earlier I wrote a brief list of what I think love makes us:
Vulnerable. Courageous. Powerful. Forgive. Willing. Selfless. Grow. Better.

So what does anger make us? A dichotomy emerged in conversation today:

Adversaries
We see it everywhere: Rage poured forth, one person onto another, groups against each other. It’s us against them, no question, no nuance, no reflection, ‘no quarter.’ Yikes.

It’s understandable, of course, and sometimes even justified, this adversarial mindset and approach to the opposition, ‘the enemy’. Longstanding experiences of socially accepted marginalization, dismissal, and oppression fester and seethe, then spew forth like pus under pressure. As with any abscess, lancing that pent up wrath relieves pain, even as the initial incision stings momentarily.

Then we ‘go to war,’ as some might say. We ‘fight’. We take both an offensive and defensive stance, we weaponize our words, and we make all the worst assumptions of those we pre-judge as against us. We close our minds to alternative perspectives, plow forward with agendas that we believe can only be achieved by vanquishing all who resist. Even if our mindset is not this extreme, we risk sliding down that slippery slope. Abstraction and dehumanization of anyone ‘on the other side’ happens all too easily, my friends, and the louder the adversarial voices around us, the more pressure we feel to follow suit.

Where and what does this get us?

Looking back on my own life, on policy and human history, I can think of few tangible examples where the adversarial approach has benefited us, individuals and the collective alike, in the long run. And when it does, the costs are extraordinarily high, often borne by those with the least power or choice. Death, destruction, trauma, and lives irrevocably shattered–the adversarial route of anger scorches the earth.

Advocates
I have a friend who exudes rage and has suffered relationship and reputation damage from it. It makes me cringe because I understand the origin of their anger as protectiveness, righteous outrage on behalf of others, and a belly full of fire to do good.

I have also witnessed them advocate for their causes with diplomatic, almost loving assertiveness toward total strangers. They are bold but respectful, strong and friendly, a force of nature, like a stiff wind that envelopes and nudges you firmly but not forcefully from behind, getting you to where you might have been going just a little faster and with more urgency. People receive their words and advocacy with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to consider action; how often do you see interactions like this?

In January I wrote “Tested and Called“, feeling angry and a little hopeless after Alex Pretti’s murder by border patrol agents. It was my first documented “DIY pep talk“, I see now. I wrote about anger and courage, ‘hope’s two daughters.’ I reminded myself that in the face of all that makes me angry, I can and must continue to show up and ‘fight’ for things and people I care about. Better writers than I have made the distinction between fighting for and fighting against. It’s a subtle attitude shift that matters.

Fighting against–being adversarial–too easily devolves into ad hominem and caustic division: name calling, shaming, othering, dismissing, dehumanizing, and even violence. The external focus and negative energy depletes us, and when we see little to no progress we burn out. Fighting for, or advocacy, on the other hand, carries a light from within, an intrinsic motivation of renewable energy, fostered and amplified when any progress is made. Advocacy attracts allies, grows a movement, and creates sustained and sustainable change agency.

The language of advocacy centers the cause, not the opposition. It informs, educates, inspires, and empowers. Advocacy demands accountability of the systems it seeks to change, as well as its own advocates themselves. The strongest and most effective advocates strive always to walk the talk.

I have written this blog for eleven years. Surely there are posts that I would not write, or write differently, today compared to when they were published. Information evolves, and I along with it. My attitudes and opinions change with age and experience. But I can stand with confidence by the intent of every post here as non-adversarial advocacy of some kind–even when the execution misses the mark. I look for others with a similar ethos, especially in medicine and science.

Whom do you admire for their non-adversarial advocacy?
What good do you see them doing in the world?
How can we amplify them?

Below are Instagram accounts that I follow for their strong advocacy in the face of threats to the integrity of our scientific and medical institutions. Some of their posts verge on adversarial, but for the most part I perceive an earnest, professional, and evidence-based mission to protect public safety. And of course I think of Braver Angels and Builders for their work to bridge division and move us away from adversarial political engagement.

Lastly, apologies for this second delayed post–life! Quality time with Son and Daughter, both home from college, took precedence over sitting at the laptop. Worth it! May we all have such meaningful and fulfilling choices to make!

Fired But Fighting

Illinois Department of Public Health

Stand Up For Science!

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)

DogGlauc: Will Flanary, MD

Collegial Love And Then Some

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Audible Narrator Hall of Fame Class of 2018 and 2026 Inductees

Who are your colleagues?
What connects you?
What do you share with these people that others do not and cannot understand or relate to?

Last week Audible celebrated their second cohort of Hall of Fame narrators, including a couple of my favorites, Andrew Eiden/Teddy Hamilton, and Steve West/Shane East. Andi Arndt, Hall of Fame Class of 2018, gushed about her colleagues on Instagram the night before, reminding me of that deep collegial love that I feel every day in medicine. My impromptu comment on her post stuck with me all week.

The photos of celebration and connection, the joy and energy of the Audible event moved me, too. I haven’t been to an American College of Physicians national meeting since 2019 (it was next weekend in San Francisco, but I came to Portland, Oregon instead, to visit with friends–hence this delayed post), and I miss seeing my colleagues from all over the country, going to sessions and learning together, having coffee, sharing stories, catching up.
Voice acting can be very solitary work, so I imagine these artists relish opportunities to gather and commune, especially when it centers around celebrating their shared love of the work.

I wrote to a VA acquaintance once, “I hope (imagine) that you get enough positive feedback, validation, and reinforcement for your work! 😀 I also hope you get enough contact and connection with your colleagues. I can always walk down the hall and consult mine on challenging cases or difficult encounters. We are friends. My professional support network is at my elbow and fingertips; I hope yours is too!”

I spent time this weekend with Christine, my life coach and friend of 20+ years. She described her experience of ‘supervision,’ wherein she was required to debrief with elder colleagues during a segment of her training, exploring potential personal pitfalls and blind spots that client work may uncover, and how to beware of and manage it all. As coach and physician, our conversations weave in and out of mutual support and informal ‘supervision’ in organic and collegial ways. Our work overlaps with that of therapists, nurses, and probably any other helping profession. Walking along the Willamette River with Grant today, we reflected on how easily we can apply our professional training and skills in any domain where humans interact.

Back in 2017, the night before presenting at general surgery grand rounds (unusual for an internist), I wrote about tribal pride and tribalism:
“We all need our tribes. Belonging is an essential human need. To fit in, feel understood and accepted, secure—these are necessary for whole person health. And when our tribes have purpose beyond survival, provide meaning greater than simple self-preservation, our membership feels that much more valuable to us. But what happens when tribes pit themselves against one another? How are we all harmed when we veer from ‘We’re great!’ toward ‘They suck’?”

Nine years on, how do we assess the relationship between tribal pride and tribalism in any given domain on the current geopolitical landscape? Surgery vs. medicine, staff vs. leadership, conservatives vs. progressives, advocates for vs. against AI… How can we maintain our human connections above all, no matter what our divergence? I have often thought of myself as a ‘lumper’ as opposed to a ‘splitter’–always looking for connection, commonality, and relationship everywhere, among all people. In the same message to my VA acquaintance:

“Acting and medicine: What do you imagine are the overlapping aspects of our respective work?  I see it mostly in story—empathy for and holistic understanding of the full human experience, from the euphoric highs to the most sorrowful lows.  For both of us, to be truly excellent at our work, we must call forth real and sincere empathy from our own depths, which is vulnerable and courageous in a lot of ways, don’t you think?  For you, the stories are complete, and you get to interpret and bring them to life, to present them for our benefit.  I get to elicit the stories, coax them to emerge in real time, and interpret them along with my patients.  What stories do people tell about their health, their lives, their agency to influence it, and the outcomes they can/not achieve?  We get to dissect and discuss and then act on our shared interpretation.  We edit and revise together over time.”

So this weekend I communed with two of my coaching friends. I spent quality time with Phara who has a degree in psychology, and Heather, a fellow writer. We bonded over parenting–the unique mental load of moms, especially working moms. This theme has emerged powerfully in my medical practice, no matter the moms’ day jobs and no matter our kids’ ages.

Colleagues share language, training, experience, and perspective. We compare notes, tell stories, and connect. But we do this not just in professional circles. Our tribal memberships intersect and overlap, often in ways we could not predict or design. So really, we can find love in commonality anywhere, with anyone, if we just open up and ask, no?

What a fun exercise to come across an idea on social media, feel it in my heart, react in real time, then process it for days and see what arises in stream-of-consciousness blogging while stuck at the airport! Tomorrow I get to co-present on health and wellness to the Illinois Judiciary–another esteemed tribe of helpers, as I see them. What a privilege.

My tank is so full from a long weekend of deep and thick connection with my amazing friends here in the Pacific Northwest. I will miss this year’s chance to commune with my fellow internists nationally, but I’ll get back to the office this week and soak it all up locally. How lucky I am, truly. I hope whatever your profession, whomever you call colleagues and friends, that you get to enjoy this deep, collegial love born of shared humanity. And if you can recognize and strengthen it across domains, even better. That’s what will save us all, I am convinced.