DOCTORS’ LOUNGE
ABORTION TRAP LAWS AND THEIR UNINTENDED CONSE- QUENCES ON THE ENTIRE HEALTH CARE COMMUNITY
DOCTORS’ LOUNGE
goal is to not accomplish anything. Here the scientific evidence can help sway would-be practitioners. Meditation is not mind-wandering. It is brain exercise with tangible, structural effects on the brain. Dan Harris, who had a nervous breakdown on live television, urges us to devote just 10 minutes a day to meditation. In his book, " 10 % Happier," he educates us on the health benefits of meditation while narrating his journey from spiritual skeptic to practitioner of Buddhist mindfulness. Harris found that his insatiable“ wanting”( for drugs, money, popularity) was quenched by meditation. Meditation provides a way, via the DMN, to decrease the amount of chronic stress that damages our physiology. Mindfulness helps us discern a threat from a challenge and helps us turn threats into challenges by changing our brains. For practical application, I highly recommend Jon Kabat-Zinn’ s book " Wherever You Go, There You Are." Kabat-Zinn has been treating patients with mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts medical school since the 80s. His books concisely describe methods of mindfulness practice( walking, standing, lying down, sitting, breathing, etc) while preparing you for the challenges. The U of L School of Medicine is now bringing mindfulness to medical education. The Healthcare Leadership School( HLS) and Compassion Cultivation Training( CCT) projects aim to teach medical students about compassion. Dean Ganzel has been active with Dr. Klein in sponsoring a team in the Center for Innovation in Leadership and Education( CENTILE) conference. She and Dr. Klein have completed the Georgetown University SOM Mind-Body Medicine program, and U of L hopes to support the training of additional faculty. On a more practical level, the medical students will soon have Koru Mindfulness training by Koru instructors on campus. The school will open mindfulness spaces in July, begin yoga instruction, and is negotiating access to the Whil mindfulness website and app for all students, faculty and staff. These resilience-bolstering measures aim to increase medical student and resident wellness by confronting burnout in a more preventive fashion. This impressive list of accomplishments makes me wonder how much time Dr. Ganzel and Dr. Klein have had lately to sit around and focus on their breathing! Like Dr. Couch, I hope the medical students can incorporate the mindfulness education they receive and apply it to their practice of medicine. But I will not let the practicing physicians off the hook. We all have neuroplasticity potential. I encourage all of you to be present with your patients and to take a few minutes a day to be present with just one thing: breathing, walking, maybe a raisin. Discern(“ to exhibit keen insight and judge well”) what is important in life and what is worth a major stress response. Judge well: your own wellness is your reward.
Martin Huecker, MD, is a full time faculty member at the University of Louisville who practices Emergency Medicine with the University of Louisville Physicians group.
ABORTION TRAP LAWS AND THEIR UNINTENDED CONSE- QUENCES ON THE ENTIRE HEALTH CARE COMMUNITY
U of L Medical Students Danielle Berera, Caitlin Gambrell, Courtney Spensley, Rina Perlin and Marlowe Dieckmann
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP bills as they are commonly named, are not only a step backward in an ongoing struggle for women’ s rights, but they are also a threat to unadulterated patient-physician relationships. The ability of physicians to uphold these trusting relationships with their patients is equally as important to Louisville’ s outstanding medical reputation as the groundbreaking research being done here on a daily basis. Government regulations that prevent trust in these relationships will diminish our city’ s quality of health care, drive down our reputation in the medical field, and could even prevent the city from attracting high-caliber physicians. No matter what your stance on abortion is, if access to proper health care is important to you, you should be very worried about these bills being brought to Kentucky’ s government floors.
In order to understand this, examination of the true intent of TRAP laws is required. In general, passage of these bills will single out and threaten abortion providers through politically motivated state regula-
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