Contents tagged with david sabgir
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Searching for balance and walking out the solution
Searching for balance and walking out the solution
By David Sabgir, MD
It was 11 years invested into medical training wasted. After doing my best for 11 years after college, I found myself … more
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Searching for balance and walking out the solution
By David Sabgir, MD
It was 11 years invested into medical training wasted. After doing my best for 11 years after college, I found myself totally ineffective at changing my patients’ behavior.
We’d had wonderful heart-to-heart talks. These conversations were real, full of great intention, and essentially worthless. As my patients came back for their six- and 12-month follow-ups, I realized I had not done my job. Their heart disease, which I knew to be 82 percent preventable, was not interrupted. It was a runaway locomotive. They were still sedentary and they hadn’t lost a pound. As a matter of fact, they were up 3 pounds. The weather had been too hot. The weather had been too cold. They knew they had to “get out.” This frustration didn’t repeat itself with one patient or a dozen patients, this was hundreds becoming thousands of patients. I was ineffective despite long, emotional conversations. One day, that was it. I refused to play this charade for what I hope to be a 30-plus-year career of trying to help others.
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