Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: From Children's center in Vancouver, Washington, this is Hope and Healing. I'm Matthew Butte, executive director of Children's center and your host.
We make this podcast in order to bring you hopeful stories and to introduce you to people who inspire hope. They've inspired a lot of hope in me and among people here at Children's center, and I hope you feel the same.
As a patient, it can be easy to forget that the person you're talking to, that doctor, that therapist, that clinician, is a human being, too.
Yes, some of us have a lot of specialized training and advanced degrees and are very qualified to work in a caregiving capacity.
But we're all just people in the end, doing our best to help each other out. And the thing is, professions in those caregiving fields can be very stressful.
Long hours working with patients who can be in very urgent situations. It can lead to mental health conditions for those workers who are, like I say, just human beings.
Dr. Jesse Gold has thought a lot about this. He's a psychiatrist and the Chief Wellness Officer for the University of Tennessee system.
Dr. Gold is also the author of How do youo One Doctor's Search for Humanity in Medicine. She says it's part memoir, part narrative about the lives of people who are either healthcare workers or on the career path to becoming healthcare workers. It's about the challenge of taking care of yourself as you take care of others.
Well, hello, Dr. Gold. It is a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us on our show Hope and Healing. It's a pleasure to meet you.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Nice to meet you, too.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: So no surprise to our listeners, Dr. Gold, I'm here with my British cup of tea. How about you? What are you drinking today?
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I have multiple beverages. I'm always of the mood that if I've had multiple beverages, I had a long day. So I've got some flavored water. I have a diet soda and I have the morning tea still in there. So I think if you're going to measure my mood by beverages, I've had a day.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Wow.
That's a good idea, though. Good collection, I think.
And leads to really the first question. Really well, because you've got this great book. Thank you for your book. I really enjoyed reading it. How do you feel One Doctor's Search for Humanity in Medicine. And you mentioned there and of course it's there at the beginning of the book, the title of the book that presentations or when you're with patients, first question is how do you feel?
Dr. Gold, how are you Feeling today?
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it's always fine to ask that. I think it's better that I answer with a real answer instead of okay and fine, like all of us want to say.
I would say, you know, there's a lot going on. So overwhelmed at times would be kind of where I am and a little bit tired.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Well, thank you for being with us in light of all those things, too, and for being honest about that. I wonder, why do we struggle to be honest with our feelings?
[00:03:12] Speaker B: There's so many reasons. I mean, I think the obvious one is it feels scary. Like if you're in a casual conversation with a work colleague and they ask you that question and you actually had real emotions and told them that, like, what would happen? It's vulnerable, and you don't know what they would do in response. You don't even know them well enough to feel like that's a good person to disclose to. So I think, like, the fear of uncertainty of the response, I think the emotion, emotional exposure that comes with being vulnerable is part of it.
I think that we're also taught to not, you know, I think starting at a pretty young age, that's the case. And, you know, depends on your culture, depends on your background, depends on where you live. But I think how we process emotions is very different in that setting. And a lot of us are told, like, you know, if you cry when you're a kid because you skin your knee, it's like, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. And so you're kind of like, maybe I'm fine. Right. And you learn that pretty young. And then for me, it gets compounded by medical culture and stuff like that. But I think we all kind of have a baseline, eh? I'd rather not.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: So what could we do? And I think we work with kids and youth here in particular, but what could we all do to become more emotionally literate, I suppose, for ourselves and then for other people? What would be your recommendation or recommendations?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the words themselves are hard. Right? So even for me, when you ask, I'm like, how many feelings are coming to mind? And are they all the ones that are on inside out? And how badly do I really just want to tell you I'm fine and that call that a feeling when it's not? And, you know, learning the words is a first step, too. Like, there's a thing called a feelings wheel. You can look it up, you could print it in your office, you could have conversations around it, and it gives you a lot more vocabulary. And the vocabulary is a good step because we don't use those words very often. It helps you see, like, the nuances and feelings. And you can start by asking yourself, right? So I think once you figure it out a little more in yourself, you'll be a little bit better at modeling it for others and helping others understand the challenges. So spend a second every day just asking yourself how you're feeling. Answer it with the words on the feelings wheel. Don't judge it. Like, don't try to change it immediately either. Like, we have this urge if we have big feelings, to make them go away as soon as possible. But it's okay to have big feelings. So sometimes say, I'm mad and sit with that for a second. And don't say, it's good or bad to be mad. Don't stop it. Just be mad and see what happens. And I think when you get used to doing it yourself, you'll feel better having those conversations with other people or even explaining to them how you got there to be able to better talk about it and discuss it with other people. Like, we need to model vulnerability, too. Like, a kid is not going to be vulnerable to you if you are not at all vulnerable to them, because they're going to see a power differential, an age difference.
They're going say, that's not what you tell grownups, unless you want to have a conversation about it that maybe leads to, you know, in my case, like, people worry about telling me things as they'll go to the hospital or something like that. And so, you know, like, there's a lot of fear of that. But if you're a grownup who says, like, I'm having a really hard day today. I didn't sleep very well. How's it been for you? I think they're much more likely to say something back. The same with a colleague. If you don't give anything, they're not going to give anything. And so, so, like, it hints at a safe space when you feel more able to tell the truth out loud. I don't mean that you have to be like, hi, here is my mental health history and my diagnoses and all that stuff. I just mean, like, some of these things that all of us deal with but we don't talk about because it's not typical to talk about. And so we just pretend that somehow we're alone and being tired by the world, and that's just not possible. So saying it out loud will make everyone feel less alone and will kind of slowly open the door. To have those conversations more and more and deeper and deeper. Sort of like an onion. Like you have to start at the outside to get to the deeper stuff. And people know that from their good friendships, probably. And I think that that is a place to start for all of that.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds good. I mean that I like the way you were saying that we have to start with ourselves and learning the language around that. Excuse me. That for many of us, we didn't. Certainly in my culture, it was stiff upper lip. And even if it wasn't said, it was felt. And so it takes some time to learn something. A different way of thinking about feelings and emotions.
On that note of somewhat self disclosure around feelings, you've gone even further than that in your work, in being very open, very courageous about your own mental health challenges. You talk about your therapist, which, by the way, sounds really cool, and if she's interested in a job working with kids, I do have openings for therapists. But she sounds great.
But that takes a lot of courage for anyone. But I would imagine, particularly in your profession, in medicine, generally.
How and why did you decide to say this is what's going on?
[00:08:27] Speaker B: For me, it's a really good question. I wish it wasn't courageous. Like, when you say that word, I kind of bristle, even though I know it's true, because I wish it was boring. And I wish all people were just open to talking about their stuff without it being such a big deal. But knowing training and what was modeled for me, I know that it's a bigger deal than I'd like it to be.
You know, for me, I tiptoed into disclosure, which helped. So I started on social media, was talking about therapy a little bit. The pandemic happened. I'm on social media, paying attention, exploring, being a little more open, not feeling like people are rejecting that. In fact, it's like, helpful to building closer bonds with people. And so I said, okay, I guess this is a thing I tested. And I tested it also, eventually by writing a piece about my own experience during COVID and a piece about my own medication. And again, I didn't spontaneously combust. And so that was helpful for me because it wasn't like I dove right in and gave a memoir and said, yay, here I am. I sort of said, like, okay, let's try with this. And like, what's that like in my workplace now? And what's. How am I feeling about having done that? And I. I don't think anybody owes anybody their story. And I don't feel like I shared every possible thing about me, and I made decisions that I think are good for me to protect, things about me that not everyone needs to know. But I do think somebody's gotta do it, and I'm okay doing it. You know, I think when I listen to patients so often, they're like, nobody else feels like this. I'm the only one who feels like this. I've never told anyone this before. And I'm sitting there going, like, I had that happen yesterday. I had that happen 10 years ago, whatever it is. And if my acknowledging that out loud for a bigger population makes more people feel less alone and more seen, that would be all I would ever want, honestly, in telling my story. Like, I don't think my story's unique. In fact, I think it's rather common and boring, and that's part of the charm. It's not like this memoir where you read it and you go, oh, gosh, everything that Jesse went through, like, I could never imagine going through that. That's just too hard, and how did she survive? And all of that, like so many memoirs are. Instead, it's like, I had that happen. I had that happen.
I could get help for that, too. And it just feels like, in its commonplace of a story and how many people struggle in silence, it feels like you belong in that a little bit, which is kind of what I was hoping for.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it really is breaking the culture of silence around this. And in doing so, how have your colleagues reacted to that?
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting.
I've had colleagues really appreciate it. I've had patients really appreciate it. Because obviously everything I share, I know that my patients can see. Even though I approach a one on one encounter a little different than I do publicly disclosing, if they bring it in, if they talk about it, it's there. Otherwise, it's always sort of an elephant in the room. So I've had patients be happy about it.
Some colleagues are interesting. There's a brand of mental health professional who very much believes in the blank slate of everything, which is a Freudian concept. That's sort of like a therapist should be a mirror to you, and you can't be a mirror if you're your own person. Right. And so in training and in modeling, there's a lot of, like, don't put pictures of your family out. Don't personalize your office. Don't. Don't talk about yourself. If a question gets asked of you, reflect it back at them and ask them why they asked you that question instead of Answering that question. Right. And it's not the case in all therapists because behavioralists are a little bit different. And it's not the case in all people who do psychiatry either. But there is enough of that where you can see that disclosing this much is so uncomfortable to some people that they're like, it's not in line with the profession.
And, like, what. How do your patients feel? What is that? Like, how dare you do that? It's very different. I don't know why you did that. And there's a degree of like, I did it for selfish reasons, which is also kind of interesting. Like, I didn't really expect that. Like, sort of, you told your story because you wanted to publish a book on your story, and that's why you're doing it. And I've never felt like that I sort of feel compelled to help other people before myself, which is the point of the book.
And so, you know, those reactions are interesting in a lot of ways for me to sort of be like, well, that's not true at all. But for the most part, people are thankful for silence, breaking and having these conversations because they feel alone in them. And for the most part, when people talk to them about their mental health, it's like a lecture. And this is very different than a lecture.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah. There is a real sense of one's common humanity here, rather than the psychiatrist or the therapist is separate from.
From the patient or from other human beings almost, which certainly would seem to help make the field more accessible rather than seeing a white coat, because, no offense, Dr. Gold, but psychiatrists can be a wee bit scary. So you're less scary when, you know, human being wrestling with the same kinds of things as the rest of us.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And there are lots of historical reasons why people don't like psychiatrists, including their own experience with one. But sometimes, you know, our past use of medicine and treatments has a bad history to it that a lot of people remember or know or are scared of. There's a lot of pushback around medicine and things like that online. So if you deep dive, you can find it, it'll be an early search result. And so we. We're not coming in with, like, the most support. Right. We're, like, coming in with a lot of people having a lot of feelings about us, most of them skeptical at best. And we are, in our jobs, supposed to help them understand that and convince them that we're normal and they should get help, and here's why. And we're doing this with them not to Them. And you know, it's really hard to do that, but I think it's necessary. And I think when we look at the future of our profession, like I want to be in a profession that people aren't scared of or, or like that people don't understand. I think that is a hard thing to catch up to. Like to always kind of having to be like, oh yeah, I'm sure you read X, Y or Z, let's talk about it. And it would be nice if people were like, I know about psychiatry. You guys are like doctors who do mental health and prescribe and that's the only difference. And you're trained in therapy and you care about me as a person and you're not just trying to drug it out of me. And you know, I think in doing that and talking about my experiences as a, as a provider and the stuff that goes through my head when I'm doing patient care, I'm hoping that people will feel less scared about psychiatry and understand it more because I think we haven't done a good job of that. And we like to keep things kind of too close to the chest. And like, when people don't understand things, they fear things. Or when people don't understand things, they avoid them. They aren't like, yeah, let's go.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Let's test that theory about what we think of psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Yeah, most people aren't going to want to try that out. So this bringing greater humanity to the field can only have one result of hopefully bringing more people who need the help to you and to your colleagues.
What about for your patients, perhaps for other colleagues too, that are wrestling with mental health issues. But do you encourage them to talk to other people? It's clearly of benefit, it would seem, but people. That culture of silence extends to a lot of people when it comes to disclosing mental health issues. How do you help kind of work with patients on that who may be afraid even to tell family members.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you don't have to tell everyone. And you should start with one person probably and see how that feels and how you react. Sort of like I started tiptoeing to my own self disclosure publicly. I think it the same holds true personally because you want to pick somebody that you kind of know where they stand on stuff and you kind of know what they might do. And so when you're approaching it, you're not approaching it blind or unsafe. You're able to say, I bet when I tell them, they'll be supportive and kind and let's see what that's like. And if you survive that, again, you're going to go, okay, let's try the next one. I think we're with things like people in your family that don't believe in psychiatry or mental health and trying to bridge that divide. It's a more complicated conversation.
I think you can script that some and have conversations with me in session to prepare for that as much as possible, but you still might not get the outcome you like. And I think part of growth and therapy is like, you're doing this for you, and you can't control other people.
And that's a hard thing for people. I hope that everyone can find at least one person that they can be really, truly open and honest with. You know, it's not helpful to only rely on me, and I am not always available, and I. And I can't see you all the time immediately. And so it helps to have someone else that you can bounce stuff off of. And also not every time you're at the level of need that you need to come see someone like me. And having a friend in that situation, or a family member or a teacher, coach, whoever that is, having someone that you're able to like, really tell the truth with is all you really need. We don't need a thousand friends or a thousand supports. We need one.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: You had.
I just want to, if it's okay, just to read one section from your book. You're not going to read the whole book, Dr. Cole, but you have said to do my job well and be someone who people can trust. I need to care. I need to be truly empathetic. I need to be raw and available. But being empathetic in a world with so much pain and so much hate sometimes feels unbearable, as if I'm being eaten alive. There's no clocking out. And when I read that, I see someone with a great deal of compassion and love for her patients.
And I'm wondering, and the question emerged, how do you sustain your work, your life, in light of that deep sense of empathy and compassion and care?
[00:19:35] Speaker B: It's hard. And it's still a work in progress for me. So sometimes my therapist will be like, I know someone who wrote a book on that, which you know is true. We're always meeting me. We're always work in progress. Like, these are things that you will always have to deal with in a job like this. And. And there are harder times and less hard times. And sometimes your life is more complicated, which makes your job more complicated. And so paying Attention to that balance is necessary.
I think that for a long time I would just almost dissociate at work. Like, not cog. Like not in my awareness of it. Like, I wasn't like, I'm going to dissociate now. It was just that I was present and empathetic, but I also wasn't hearing it in a way that my soul was absorbing it. And I don't know how I learned to do that. I think maybe watching other people do this job and seeing how they did it, and then just seeing so many patients and hearing so much bad stuff that it almost becomes like something you just hear. And I didn't really realize I did that until, like, my life started to impact work more. I mean, an early time that happened, my dog was in the doggy ICU and I listened to a patient and then the patient left and I started crying and I kept going. The world is bad, the world is bad. How sad is the world? Like, it was like I all of a sudden listened or something. Like truly listened. And one of my friends was like, what was different about that patient than any other patient you listened to? And there was nothing. It wasn't like that story was way worse or anything. It was just the time, the moment, and my inability because of being tired and dealing with my own stuff, to remove myself from the equation. And so I'm trying to be better about that. And for me, that's making time for me, giving myself an outlet to decompress, making sure that between patients and after patients, there's some sort of transition. So I'm not just like pretending none of that affected me. The checking in with myself part is. Is important just to kind of recognize I'm in the room too, and that I'm not just kind of there as a body doing the work. And so checking in with myself, having rituals of like, you know, transition can be helpful. I go to therapy every week still, which is really helpful.
But it's a. It's a. It's hard. I will say that. And there's times where, you know, when something bad is happening in the world or impacting a lot of people and everyone wants to talk about it. Those are really, really hard times. Like when every session is about the same thing but in a different way.
Like Covid was like that, but everyone's experience was sort of different. So there were ways to make that a little bit easier. But like big headline news trauma in a community situation or something politically or policy wise or something where everybody wants to talk about it. That's hard because you're just like, I can't. Like, this is the same thing again, and I can't fix it. And that's hard for me as a doctor and also an empath. And I think part of that for me is realizing that I'm of benefit, being present and listening, even if I can't fix stuff. And so all of that has been growth for me, like, learning to be more present myself and check in with myself and making sure I'm not just, like, pretending it doesn't affect me. And also, you know, keeping in mind that my job is important even if I can't fix it with a medicine.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that so much. You do.
But just being there and being empathetic and listening, that in itself is a good beginning and helps tremendously. And I think of the therapists in our building here. We've got a lot of them, many new to the field, ways in which they can sustain the work in light of what you've said, and those are some great things that they can take. And other therapists that might be listening to this. Is there anything else you'd add to that?
[00:23:49] Speaker B: I think, you know, case consultation and stuff like that can be really helpful, even just support consultation. Like, maybe you don't want to talk about cases, but, you know, folks that do dialectical behavioral therapy always have that as a part of their practice and have space to talk about how they feel in regards to harder patients and how that's affecting their lives. And I think that outlet is really important because saying it out loud and having somebody say, like, I feel that way too, or it's really hard for me sometimes, too, or whatever it is, you're not. Like, it doesn't. You don't feel bad that you feel a certain way about a patient, or you don't feel bad that you did something wrong, you get some feedback on that. And so I think the group element can be really helpful. I mean, a lot of my best friends are still residency friends, and so that I use it that way. Like, sometimes I'll be like, we're gonna play not just friend for a second, and I'm going to run a case or I'm going to run a situation by you. And I just want, like, feedback. And I think understanding this job and being able to support somebody in that way is like an extra thing. And I would also just say that I used to approach my job, like, if I burnt out, I failed, or if it affected me, I failed. Like, somehow if I did more work or said yes to more things or found more meaning in what I was doing, it wouldn't happen to me. And now I approach it like we work in a really hard field. If it doesn't affect you as a good person who chose to do it, like, that's the problem.
So I kind of have been able to flip it, and that has helped me be nicer to myself when it happens and find ways to sort of prevent it along the way. And instead of just being shocked when it happens, because for me and for so many of my patients, until it interferes with work, work, it's not a thing. And we're able to do work as robots a lot of times. Like, we're really good at work. Like, we've done it, we'll do it. Same with school. We did it, we'll do it. But when it affects work, probably the rest of your life has already been affected for a while. And so, you know, when you approach it like you're having a hard month, it would be not shocking if you were to burn out this month. Then you pay a lot more attention to what's going on with you and you find coping skills and try to do them, or you make plans with friends because you know it's going to be hard. Whatever it is, it allows you to plan for it, to notice it earlier, and to not blame yourself when it happens, which is a big thing. It really is hard to be like, I am a bad doctor, mom, clinician, therapist, friend, whatever, because I feel this way. And when you get to that point, it's harder to dig yourself out and change your mind.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: And you had mentioned that perfectionism is quite a thing in your profession. So given what you've just said, I would imagine that just kind of times, by two or ten, how have you kind of got over that? Or have you? I guess I shouldn't assume have you? Does one even get over perfectionism? What? What's that?
How would you describe that for you now and for anyone who's kind of wrestling with that?
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you can go from the adaptive, like the maladaptive side to being more adaptive. So the maladaptive side, meaning you don't expect to fail, and when you fail, it's horrible and it affects your mental health. It's the worst thing that ever happened. You can't learn from it. There's the, you know, way of approaching things more as a growth mindset, but also adaptive perfectionism, where you're still trying to be perfect because you want to be good at what you do, but you recognize that there will be times where you can't be or you have to drop something, and that's not a failure, even if you want to view it as a failure. Failures are human, and it is what it is. And so I don't know that I've, like, healed my perfectionism in that I'm now, like, totally okay doing nothing. But I. I think that people want perfectionist doctors, too. Like, you want me to be as good as I possibly could be at my. And I recognize that, and I want to do that for people, too. And so that's an underlying thing. It's just like approaching it with a bit more of a healthy mindset and a bit more awareness that we do make mistakes. And mistakes are things you can learn from, and mistakes are things you can talk about with other people if it feels like you need to. And they're not failures. And, like, you can get out of that. That mindset some.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: I'm wondering if your next book could be Failures are Human.
That's your title for the next one.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: I mean, I'll ask my editor. Thanks for figuring it out.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: That's right. That's the one we need, too. I think it'd be a good second to this one, but. Because we all need reminding of it, but I think particularly those in healthcare. So speaking of kind of healthcare, which we've done a lot of, but your own journey into it, why psychiatry?
[00:29:03] Speaker B: You know, my dad's a psychiatrist, and I tried really hard not to be a psychiatrist because I don't like following in people's footsteps. And my dad was a chairman of a department and well known in what he was doing. And I would have followed in his footsteps if I did psychiatry. So when I went into med school, you know, excited about science and humans and anthropology, so really interested in people's stories. I also have a master's in anthropology.
I was like, I'm not going to do psychiatry, so I have to figure it out. And then everywhere and everything pointed me back to it. Like, I just wanted to pull up a chair and talk to a patient and have time. I wanted to understand their social history. And in so many other fields, you don't have the time to do that because you have to diagnose and treat it and get it over with when you're 15 minutes or whatever. It was very different in psychiatry.
I also felt more like a human in psychiatry.
As a rotation in med school was the first time my name was on the door, the first time I was given a desk it sounds so silly and simple, but when you're basically just like carrying stuff for people and retracting for hours and you're present, but people might call you med student and not remember who you are because you change every couple weeks and they don't have the time or capacity to remember that. But you're doing a bunch of sort of like grunt work that they don't want to do.
Being in a situation where somebody knows your name, thinks you're important enough to put it on the door, and also gives you space to work where you aren't fighting a nurse for a desk is really important. And I think maybe it was the time in training when that happened, but I felt very much like, oh, like I'm allowed to be me in the context of this. Like I don't have to do everything that they want me to do. I don't have to lose myself to do this.
They value me for me. Even as simple as like my name.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: I am curious. So there aren't many of you, that is psychiatrists. We need more and more child and adolescent psychiatrists. We're fortunate to have two here.
What would be your words of wisdom and encouragement for folks thinking of entering the mental health profession, whether it's psychiatry or becoming a therapist social worker?
What would you say to them?
[00:31:36] Speaker B: I think it's a really cool, important field that gives you a lot of meaning and you will never go a day where you're not needed because there is always something that's affecting people's mental health and it's just the way that it is. You'll always be needed. And I think that's important because sometimes it doesn't feel like that in other settings and other jobs. There's like a ton of job security as a result.
But you know, for me you have to ask yourself, like, your hours are better, your work life balance is better, but can you handle it emotionally? And I think that's a question you need to answer because if you just go in assuming that it won't affect you or that you're fine with it, and then you're shocked that our hours are better, but we listen to hard stuff all day, that won't be good. So open minded decisions that are not just based on work life balance, I think in this case are pretty important.
But it's an art which is fun, you're the tool which is fun. And that's just not the case in a lot of fields where you get time to spend with people and help them understand themselves and their story. So I would say, please do the fields because it's fun. I like it. I've always liked it. It's fun.
Gonna change. It's changed so quickly in, you know, we didn't have any meds until, like, the 80s, you know, like, it's changed so fast. And that means there's a lot of promise for change in the future, which I think is also exciting for people to not go into a field where all of the meds are discovered and everyone understands everything already. There's still a lot to learn about the brain and about mental health and about diagnoses and about treatment and that it'll change quickly. And that's interesting, too.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: So you give ideas in your book and in your work around how we can bring more humanity to the field of medicine. If today you could wave the magic wand, the Dr. Gold wand, what's the one thing you would do and change to make that so?
[00:33:46] Speaker B: My gut is to tell you either more time with patience or redundancy. More redundancy in the workplace, meaning if I'm not there, the world doesn't fall apart. Like there's someone else who can do that.
The reason I went right to two system things is I think that I could tell you every single day that you should.
And we could change culture talking about this stuff out loud, and we can, and that'll help some percentage of people, but there will still be people who don't find meaning and purpose in their job because they get 15 minutes with a patient and that's not what they signed up for. Or they spend all day documenting or talking to an insurance company, and that's not what they signed up for. And so some of these system things are like behemoths to fix. I mean, it's the same at the nhs. You know, they're big, big things to fix, and people can see them and know what's wrong, but they're already there. It's hard to backtrack. And so if I could change everything or could change, you know, wipe it clean, I think I would want to fix a system thing, because I'm not sure that we will.
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm not sure that we will get to fix some of that stuff otherwise, because we're kind of left with the systems that we have, and it's pretty hard to backtrack.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: I think working in that system that that is broken and will take a lot to get fixed. Inspired by you, Dr. Gold, and many of your colleagues and my colleagues here who are working within that system to help change and save lives. And so just thank you so much for the work that you do for taking time out with us today in light of what is a very busy week for you. And again, thank you for all you do and hopefully we'll see you again soon.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Would love to and thanks for having me.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: You can learn more about Dr. Jesse Gold at Dr. Dr. Jesse with an I gold.com Hope and Healing was produced by Jenny Hoheisel and John Moe. Music by concert rock violinist Erin Meyer. This podcast is presented by Children's center in Vancouver, Washington. Children's Center's mission is to serve children, youth and families through comprehensive community based mental health services.
As a reminder, as we mention on every episode, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached in the United States by calling or texting 988. It's free and it's available 24. 7.
For more information, visit TheChildrenCenter.org I'm Matthew Butte and thank you for listening.
