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Source: Serge van Neck/Unsplash On Wednesday, Feb 17, 2021, eight people were injured in a mass shooting that took place in broad daylight at the mass transportation hub in my neighborhood. It happened at the station where my family and I would normally take the subway to go downtown. Fortunately, my loved ones and I were not there at the time, but we could easily have been. This particular shooting has had an especially rattling effect on me because I have lived through too many similar events. In August 2019, five people were gunned down in broad daylight during a drive-by shooting two blocks from my home. In June 2019, I was in a subway when a gunfight broke out in the next train car. In September 2018, I was at home one evening when a three-way gun battle took place right outside my house. When the police arrived, they sealed us inside our home and I watched from a window as they counted over 40 bullets. In addition, along the paths I walk to the subway and supermarket are … [Read more...] about The Burden of Community Violence

Source: Teddy Hugo Walker/Nuzzle The autumn of 1985 proved a turning point in my career as a veterinarian, one that reached deep to my very essence, brought me to question my ethics and values, and has since imbued every part of my life: the tenderness I treasure as a father and husband; the connections I cherish with colleagues and friends; my empathy for others, both animals and humans; and the compassion that inspires so many choices I make. As I write down these thoughts over 30 years later, I still remember that fall so vividly. We had just dipped our toes into the third year of vet school. With a wild-eyed excitement that had snowballed all summer—after two grueling years spent in lectures and labs in a torrent of formaldehyde, microscopes, and specimens—we were finally entrusted with our first chance in clinics. With stethoscopes draped round our necks, proudly worn as badges; manure-stained, khaki overalls and blue scrub suits in-hand; and student-length, white … [Read more...] about Finding Empathy and Ethics When the Odds Feel Overwhelming

Source: Vinicius Wiesehofer/Pexels In 2015, a statistic about social media use captured the Internet’s attention : "More people have died of selfies than shark attacks this year.” To be fair, very few people die of either selfies or shark attacks. But a wave of research continues to suggest that social media use can be a significant impediment to mental health. A new study points specifically to selfies as a mood and confidence -lowering activity. Social media use has been linked to depression , anxiety , body dissatisfaction, and increased focus on appearance. These effects are fairly broad, but they seem to hit young women (who are the heaviest users of social media) especially hard. Yet many of the studies showing an association between heavier social media use and decreased mental health are correlational. As any of my students can quickly tell you: Correlation does not equal causation. In other words, just because social media use is correlated with negative … [Read more...] about The Psychological Cost of Posting Selfies