We all know this word – the property of not lasting or enduring for an indefinite period of time. But what does that really mean with regards to mindfulness and our experiences?

In the second part of this two-part post, Motivational Interviewing teacher and coach, Ali Hall reflects on how to listen more deeply to those who are struggling to change their behaviors.

There is an internationally recognized tool for measuring the effectiveness of a clinical encounter using Motivational Interviewing and it is called the MITI (Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity).  In this post, Ali Hall, who acts as MI coach in our MI Certificate course reflects on one of the first times she used the MITI--on a patient conversation she herself had with a chronic smoker.

What you think might be fostering connections to others may actually be amplifying your own critical voice or taking you out of the present moment, hijacking your attention away from your physical company.

The Case for Scribes: Reinvigorating the curiosity of a talented family physician.

It is logical to ask if Motivational Interviewing can be an effective intervention for patients struggling with issues of weight and obesity.  As with any chronic health condition, MI can be helpful, but it is not a cure.  The question to ask is, “What is the target?”

Primary care is an appropriate setting for managing many chronic conditions.  Its longitudinal practice of medicine may seem ideal to handle this intractable issue.  But modern PC practices are also fast-paced and mostly limited to brief encounters.  Obesity cannot be cured in a fifteen-minute consult.  

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Opioid addiction is a national epidemic.  Effective treatment options exist but are challenging to access, especially for patients who live in remote, rural areas. There is a long history of separation of treatment of addiction and medicine and a disconnect between primary care and treatment for opioid addiction.  Our project has brought evidence-based treatment to a population in great need.  

UMass CIPC recently partnered with an Accountable Care Organization in rural New York, Bassett Healthcare Network, to expand their provision of Medication Assisted Treatment. Our work together began in January of 2017 and was primarily delivered via video conferencing.  This post was written by James Andersen, PhD a former behavioral health fellow at UMMS and a key partner in this collaboration.

Self-care and mindfulness techniques help patients cope with lives that leave them exhausted and burnt out. 

PCPs might model that self-care in their own struggles to stay afloat in a punishing healthcare system.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog on physician burnout.

Medicine boasts a “find it and fix it” (ideally as quickly and as painlessly as possible) mentality. However, changing and fixing systems is as, if not more, complicated than human beings and when things are going wrong, rarely is it one specific fix that can address all the issues. 

Recently, one of our family doctors posted a link to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine about physician burnout, a recently hot topic purporting epidemic levels of physician burnout with not only personal impact but also patient care implications. A nerve was touched. 

A psychiatrist weighs in--I feel appreciated by my colleagues and patients at the Family Health Center, although I’m not sure folks fully understand what I do (heck, not sure I do either), so I wanted to try to explain a bit more what I am up to when I sit down with a patient.

Choosing which thoughts to believe and which to be curious about and which to dismiss takes attention and conscious effort. Once we are aware, however, we can gain control over a tendency to passively accept thoughts as truth and begin to shift our reactions to our thoughts.  

One of our recent fellows, Joan Fleishman, PsyD, is the Behavioral Health Clinical and Research Director in the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). She recently co-authored a paper in the Annals of Family Medicine. “Interdisciplinary Management of Opioid Use Disorder in Primary Care” describes a Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) program in the Pacific Northwest. 

The team-based skills needed for effective behavioral health integration into Primary Care require specific competencies.  Read how our founding director, Dr. Alexander Blount is helping to shape what we mean by "competencies".