Balancing Patient Care and Self-Care: Key Strategies for Medical Practice Owners

This week, we have Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD is a Board-Certified Family Physician and volunteer Adjunct Clinical Instructor of Medical Education for the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Join us as we discuss the state of Mental Health for Medical Practice Owners, Doctors, Patients, As Dr.Clarke shares her experiences and how she was able to overcome it.
Learn different ways on how to deal with the challenges of Mental Health.

YouTube Video Link to the podcast episode: https://youtu.be/HzxPXxJtocg

Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn @synsormed.

Learn more about what we do at SynsorMed at www.synsormed.com.

Transcript

Introduction and Guest Introduction

Theo Harvey: Hey everyone. Welcome once again to Medical Success Secrets. I'm your host Theo Harvey and I have another fabulous guest with me to talk about secrets of healthcare, but more importantly how you can be productive as new normal of healthcare. With me today is Dr. Clarke. She is a board. Certified Family Physician and Voluntary Adjunct Clinical Instructor of Medical Education for the Keck School of Medicine at USC.

As a Los Angeles native, she passionately provides care for individuals experiencing homelessness in downtown on Skid Row, Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor's of Science from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, and she earned her medical degree from the Crichton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska.

After a non traditional journey of medical practice, she completed her family medical residency at UC Irvine in 2017, receiving a late diagnosis of ADHD at 35. Dr. Clarke. Enthusiasm as an advocate for mental health and ADHD. Born to help people like me is the story of Dr. Clarke's medical journey featured in American board of family medicine, stories of family medicine health equity and action series.

She's also contributing author of her first book of black girls and white coats, black female doctors released in April, 2023, which inspires black females to pursue a career in healthcare. Dr. Clarke, thank you for joining us today. 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Mr. Harvey. I appreciate it.

Theo Harvey: Awesome. No, thank you. Thank you. So let's get into it. 

Dr. Clarke's Personal Mental Health Journey

Theo Harvey: I mean, look, mental health is definitely a crisis right now. Some of the last statistics I saw back in 2023 surveyed by American Medical Association or AMA said that more than 60 percent of physicians are reporting feeling signs of burnout and 35 percent experienced mental health struggles, many not seeking any health themselves.

Right? And so what is your experience with the mental health issues? challenges during your medical journey, right? As a professional, but also as you talk to other patients, what are you seeing in this epidemic that's happening right now with mental health? 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: So yes, I'm Dr. Kalaki Clarke and I call myself the patient and the clinician.

Meaning, essentially, right after medical school when I graduated from Creighton in Omaha, Nebraska in 2005, about six months into my training, I experienced a really, um, a downward spiral in regards to my emotional health. I was very, um, overwhelmed by the long work hours. Um, I just got just, I felt like I didn't belong based on me being a minority physician in a group of, you know, non minorities.

Um, just overwhelmed, burnt out, and I had never had any mental health challenges prior to that. So I'm 26 years old and nothing's ever gone bad in my life. And all of a sudden I'm like thinking of not wanting to live consecutive days, days, days, at least six weeks consecutively every day. I didn't want to live.

And so what I learned from that experience, because I went from one extreme to not having any issues to another extreme. in regards to ask my parents to take me to the hospital to protect myself because I was suicidal. That extreme, what it did, it actually allowed me to have a lot of understanding and empathy for what mental health is, and also to be able to know that there's a solution for it.

So once I got my help, it actually empowered me to be able to be a voice and a representation of hope for my patients and colleagues as well. 

Impact of Physician Mental Health on Patient Care

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: And I will say, because it is a very prevalent situation, specifically with the physicians, one doctor dies by suicide each day, each day. And that's like 300 to 400 per year.

And that's about a million patients every year losing a clinician. So for me, I believe that as healthcare providers, us self caring and taking care of mental health is going to, you know, have a trickle down effect for the rest of the world and society. Because if we're here, obviously we can take care of people, right?

I mean, if we're not here, then we can't. So I feel like my experience with dealing with depression, anxiety, um, and then having my own challenge with ADHD being realized later on, it's just giving me a kind of like a credit credibility or just kind of like people can believe that whatever I'm doing, they're saying is legit because I'm still here 20 years later after whatever I might've tried.

Also, my transparency, even with my patients has helped them get their care because they're like, wow, you're a doctor. Great. You, you're doing this and maybe there's hope for me. And I've actually seen the results of being transparent with them in regards to them feeling better. One lady with a bipolar disorder where she never wants to take medicine.

She took medicine and she was like, I never thought I would have a life. And now I actually can live. I actually don't have to be miserable all the time. I don't have to be hopeless and think the world's coming to an end. And. It's not to say that everyone has to be medicated. However, you do what's necessary to function.

And since my back was against the wall when I was in my crisis, I had no choice. And so that was what I learned about in school. So how am I going to learn about it and know that biologically what the challenges can be that can cause you to lose the, you know, neurotransmitters that are important for your wellness, like serotonin and dopamine.

And then I'm not going to take it myself because of stigma or because of pride. That doesn't really make sense to me. So in a nutshell, I've learned that being open and real has helped others and also a lot of physicians as well. Because a lot of times when I share my story, my five minute summary on YouTube has over 30, 000 views that shares my situation as described briefly.

A lot of people, you know, send me messages and DM, Oh my gosh, you're so brave. I feel the same way too. Thank you for sharing that. But you know, no one's going to say it loud because of the stigma associated with it. So like, I kind of like to be a bridge for like my only. My patients, but also like my colleagues to realize, Hey, it is what it is.

You're human. Get the help you need to be well, because in my experience and thought process is my body and spirit are all connected. If your mind is not okay, it affects everything else. So if you're depressed, you're not going to have motivation to self care and take your medication for diabetes. In addition to me understanding that people with diabetes, like 25%, 40 percent likelihood to be depressed because there's a connection to the two.

So handling your mind motivates you to handle your body, which motivates you to be overall well, because you break that cycle up. Oh, I'm sick. I don't take care of myself. Then I get sicker and I feel more depressed. It's just like a cycle. So hopefully I answered your question within all of that. But the whole point is it's prevalent.

It's something I'm passionate about. And to be frank with you, right before I came to join you, what am I, um, delays is because before I came on, I want to give you specific names. Of the doctors who have died by suicide within the last four weeks. One was actually October 2nd. It's a African American female, but as I was trying to go back and find her, it's heartbreaking.

There were so many that I was not aware of. I literally just Googled within my group that I have physician suicide. And it was new ones that I had never even seen before that that happened with. So in a nutshell, it's, it's close to me. I just like promoting life and wellness and my success with helping patients.

Is there success or vice versa? Like I take it personal because I don't have to be here and I am. 

Theo Harvey: Well, you know, again, you know, thank you for sharing that story with us as well. And just your journey. Right. And like you said, yeah, testimony can help people do their individual tests. Right. And by sharing that with others.

And so I appreciate you doing that as well on this podcast. One thing you kind of hit the nail on the head for me was number one, physicians who take their lives. Yes. It's, it's tragic for them and their immediate family, but then all the patients they were taking care of in that community, right? And you mentioned the 300 or so doctors that, that died from suicide every year.

There's over a million patients out of a physician that's helping them. 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: And this is also potential because we're talking about the medical spectrum. Like we're talking about medical students, residents, physicians who are already in practice. And so it's not even isolated to one group. So potential patients.

or they've lost their lives or future patients have lost their physician because the medical student died by suicide or that I know the psychiatrist that went to my college. Um, his name was Omar Howard, Dr. Omar Howard. He was a psychiatrist and he died by suicide 2018. So this is way past already finishing training, already finishing practice or being in practice and died by suicide.

So it's, it's real and we have to realize that we're human. We can't act like we're Superman or super, you know, above being a human, you know, I mean, what makes us different? Actually, we should be expected to do this, not expected to, but it shouldn't be a surprise because of our responsibilities, because of the load, because of the burden and not in a negative way, I love what I do.

But it's a lot. 

Strategies for Physician Self-Care

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: And one thing I will say is, in addition to just being transparent and sharing with patient things and encouraging them based on my experience, I also give them tips like how to preserve us as doctors. So I might give an example and say, listen, please look at your bottle with your refills.

Okay. You have five refills. So if you're calling me a month later. Don't because the pharmacy contact the pharmacy, you are preserving me because I don't have to stop and evaluate the situation to figure out how to help you with your medicines because you already have them. And I try not to make it about me.

It probably is because every little click counts, every click in our inbox counts. But I say, look, you don't have your medicine and it's accessible to you. So I don't like the fact that you don't have your medicine. So you have the power. So I empower patients as they look at this. Or if it's something that doesn't require a medical degree to handle, so if they need to follow up on the referral.

Don't make an appointment to follow up on your referral with me. We have referral coordinators. I've given you their contact information. Follow up with such and such as this extension and they will help you with that. So that they kind of preserve me so I can focus on the medicine practice. 

Theo Harvey: Well, you know, and I think especially as um, internal medicine, family medicine, It's becoming a catch off for a lot of different things, right?

And so I think Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has realized that. And so they're trying to help augment, like you mentioned, doing all these things that maybe a social worker could do, right? So I don't know if you're aware, but they have CPT codes that doctors can take advantage of. That can actually pay for community health workers to do all that blocking and tackling as needed to help patients with social terms of health issues, right?

Like, you know, medication, compliance, transportation issues. So those are ways to kind of help, you know, take that off the burden of your plate because I guess what we're inferring here is that, you know, sometimes the doctors feel either the stress, the overwhelmness of, dealing with the practice itself, trying to manage all these different points from a patient standpoint, just puts a lot of burden, stress and just unnecessary work on a doctor's plate.

And there's ways they can offload that with available resources and make it in a sustainable way to your point, you know, where you have that resource that can help you, I think is going to be so valuable for the future of healthcare. Right. Especially the front end, let's be honest, you know, primary care, internal medicine, a lot of that is.

the quarterbacking of health care, right? You have to go to the specialist. You have to help with them with medications. Like you said, they need mental health, right? Um, so it's a lot of things that baked into being a primary internal medicine physician. And so I think that causes a lot of stress and turmoil as well.

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: So for me, it's It's a lot, but it's the challenge that I like. I like the challenge of being in the core of kind of being the coordinator of all the, everything that's happening, kind of being in the hub, but I want to be in the hub in the more of a medical practice sense, not in the hub of, for example, someone emailed me yesterday, asking me about the housing referral status of a patient.

So I can look that up. However, we do have care coordinator director who they can directly be linked up with each other to be able to follow up on those types of things. And because I think it's maybe ADHD thing, cause we don't like being bored. So like that doesn't stimulate me. Like if a patient asked me for the address of their referral or we're a specialist, It just does something to my head.

Like I can't just rattle off numbers and addresses and phone numbers because my brain is not challenged. It's just like, what are you doing to us? Like, what, why are you like, we don't like this. So I like might find another way to, I will literally have a method where I can securely send the information without me rattling it off because it just does something to me.

I'd like the challenge. I want you to tell me that you have a lot of problems and I can help solve them, like 

Theo Harvey: medical problems. Well, you know, you want to provide the most value you can, right? Not like one small little concern. I mean, which is valid, you know, for a patient who needs medications. But what's the bigger thing that we can solve, right?

And help you with so that you get the most bang for the buck for the time that we spend together. Plus 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: time is limited as well. Exactly. You know, we can't spend time on the things that require a physician to do when we can handle things that I can, you know, within that time. 

Theo Harvey: Mhm. Yeah. 

Technology in Healthcare Communication

Theo Harvey: So let's double click a little bit.

You're talking about like ways to kind of reach out to patients securely with secure apps, texting, things like that. What are your thoughts about using technology right to kind of influence how you communicate with patients, how you talk to them. There's some tools and technologies that allow you to do dictation automatically with artificial intelligence, all these behavior health tools and apps, you know, things to that nature.

Mhm. What are your thoughts about that? Is that becoming too burdensome? You think for what you do, or does it help augment what you do? 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: It depends on what, what tools we're speaking of, because there's so many, as you mentioned, the AI scribe is actually something very helpful and very useful for me personally, it saves a lot of time.

It's very secure and it's just. It saves a lot of time because it takes me a while just to formulate the documentation for a patient. So it takes away that burden because I don't want to look at patient as another note. That's how I see it. When I start looking at this patient as another documentation, that's when I know I'm really like on that burnt out spectrum of things, but that definitely helps with time.

The thing is, I feel like there should be some regulation in regards to how much communication they have with us in a sense. I don't want to have a dialogue back and forth. When it could be a visit, we need to talk about, you know what I mean? So there should be some limits to a certain extent in regards to, you can't give me all your symptoms and your issues and expect me back and forth through the email or through the portal to handle the issue, you know what I mean?

Like, and I do believe there was some positive things that came from the pandemic in regards to the telehealth and telemedicine being available so that patients don't have to come in, but you cannot do everything over the phone or on a video. Like I can't do pap smears. I cannot evaluate your shoulder.

situation over the phone or through the video. So these things can be helpful. If I just need to tell your results and like, sometimes patients want to come in with a follow up with me when I say, Oh, I'll just call you. Oh, I want to come in. No. So I will say you only need to come in. If like, I saw something wrong with your blood pressure or, you know, we were dealing with a new thing.

I want to physically examine and see that it's resolved. But if I'm just telling you results. Well, I'm just calling to see how you responded on your benign prosthetic hyperplasia medicine so that you're not peeing all night. I don't have necessarily have to see, you know, so they don't always know when it's appropriate for those, you know, technologies that involve the computer, not human to human touch.

On the other hand, it is helpful. So it just depends on what it is. So to summarize my response, I think the AI scribe for sure. It's helpful for me and for writing letters, letters like people. Oh, I want to know for this. I want to know for that. Yeah. That's very helpful for those things because you can gotcha 

Theo Harvey: and you get the nail in the head.

I mean, the whole thing about physicians, I saw a statistic by the American Medical Association. They said physicians have received 57 percent more text messages since the pandemic. So prior to pandemic, you know, wasn't as useful. But now I guess, Patients are used to kind of talking to a doctor via text and doctors as honest are used to probably responding that way.

Right. Prior to dependent, when I reached out to doctors and talk to them, you know, it was either a phone call or in person. Now, you know how many times I text doctors back and forth to kind of have communications. So to your point, we're seeing ways to kind of use technology, kind of triage that a little bit better.

That doesn't have to necessarily go for you, especially if it's a question about billing, if it's a question about medication, there's things like that, refills that can be kind of triaged and sent. down the traditional path. Kind of like you would your calling trees, right? When patients call the doctor's office, right?

Call one, if you want to speak to Billy, call two, if you need a refill. And to your point, there has to be a standard way of care. Annual wellness visits are great, you know, so that you can kind of have them at one time and kind of have a conversation with them and basically kind of set that care plan together.

The Role of Technology in Healthcare

Theo Harvey: But again, the time factor, right? You know, how much time. I think I can see them and really go into depth with their help. I think that's going to be key. And I think technology has a place as with everything. And to your point, it just has to be useful and doesn't put more burden. Like, unfortunately we see statistics about EMRs.

Yes. They're great with digitizing records and getting data understanding, but to your point, doctors became more transcribers, right? Putting data. boxes. Yes. That wasn't great for customer care. So now we're creating technology to help us of a different technology that we needed. So, um, so anyway, so to your point, I think it has to be useful.

Chronic Condition Management Tools

Theo Harvey: What we do, we do chronic condition management. So we kind of use like Uh, blood pressure cuffs and scales. They're cellular enabled so patients can use them. So for like cardiologists or primary care is really worried about uncontrollable hypertension or diabetics. You can get that data automatically pulled in.

You can see trending information. So that can help. You're not getting a lot of alerts and alarms for unnecessary stuff, but stuff that's trending and you want to check how medications, certain medications are doing with patients is really helpful for that. Oh, I definitely agree with 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: that. 

Patient Education and Engagement

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: I mean, I say the patients are at home where they are more than they are with me, right?

Helpful, you know, because, you know, they call it the white coat hypertension when they get in the office and their blood pressure is high because they're nervous and scared. But, so when they say that I don't give them a pass and say, Oh, they don't need medicine or they don't need to manage it because I do have blood pressure monitors that I do distribute to patients at my clinic.

And I say, check your blood pressure. I'm going to follow up with you or have someone else follow up with you in about two or three weeks. And I want you to tell me what your readings have been looking like. And I also give them the range or the value to, you know, To know what is normal or not normal. So they, they can't get away with telling me, Oh, it was good or bad.

What is good? Like what is bad? Right. We need concrete information and data because you could think good is, you know, one 70 over 80, and that's because you're used to being a 200, right. But that's still not good. Okay. It's better. But it's not good. So I really like to educate patients so they're aware what we're monitoring because I feel like when they know what's going on, it makes them more involved and make them more mindful in care and more compliant with the whole program.

Theo Harvey: Yeah. 

Mental Health for Physicians and Patients

Theo Harvey: And so I think when you kind of look at where it's all kind of going, you know, from your standpoint, especially around mental health, what do you see as important for, for physicians to kind of think through as they're building their practice? Not just, you know, serving, helping them with their patients with mental health, but helping themselves, right?

Kind of navigate any issues that they may have. What do you recommend for, as you talk on social media and communicate? Helping 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: themselves, meaning helping the, the, the clinicians or helping the patient? Like who are we talking about? Both. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah. So first, obviously physician heal thyself and then patients, you know, what are some of the things that you're doing to kind of incorporate like a general mental health wellness programs into your practice?

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: He's put this way. I don't always practice what I preach, to be honest with you. And from the physician's standpoint, Oh, I'm so transparent. Like, Oh my gosh, like I'm going to be real, but it makes me real and relatable because if I had it all together, then who's going to listen to me? Cause like, you know, I can't attain that.

It could be the thought process. I think we just have to be mindful that patient's emergency or their urgency. Concern is not always the priority in reality, like in big picture. So someone might be concerned about, Oh my gosh, I got to get this, this form filled out right now, fill this form right now. And it's actually due in a week or two weeks or whatever the case is.

Setting Boundaries and Self-Care for Physicians

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: So kind of like setting boundaries really, I would say for physicians in regards to how much they allow patients to, um, I don't say encroach their space, but just like affect their, Their own flow because we have our own pattern or flow of how things go. So if we decide, let's say I decide I'm only going to check messages this particular time.

Okay. If it's urgent, I can alert my medical assistant or my front desk about what certain things I would consider urgent to bother me or to interrupt me regarding. Otherwise at 10 o'clock and three o'clock, this is when I check my messages. So patients can't expect me. Let's say they messaged me at 12 o'clock.

They're not going to get a response until, okay. After three period, like setting boundaries, letting patients know what the expectations are that they should have a view and you have them as well. It's kind of also important taking a break for lunch, eating something I got to do. I don't always do because It's always something to do.

And, um, you know, so my, my medical assistant, she did give me a payday for lunch yesterday, I appreciated that. Cause I hadn't brought mine, but anyways, um, yeah, but so that's important, you know, recharging, resetting. Um, I have a post on Instagram that it kind of shows like I'm at my high battery level at the beginning of the day.

It, then it kind of goes down mentally because I'm pouring out. I'm pouring out and pouring out before lunch. It's not a good time really. Or if we are, we got to wrap this up because I got to recharge with lunch or some break. And then after lunch, I'm, I'm again, I'm good. So I sell patients the best time for me personally to get me my prime is like between the first one hour and a half of the day.

Or the first one hour and a half after lunch, because that's where I'm the most juiced up, you know what I'm saying? So I give them little tips to how, like, I say, help me help you, you know what I mean? So that you're not frustrated because, you know, a lot of doctors fake it until they make it or don't make it, let's call it that way.

But I don't know how to fake it. So I can't And I want to give my all. I want to give my best representation of myself. So if doctors, if you know yourself and how you function, um, not to tell them everything, but let patients kind of get aware of when the peak times are to like address you. When I say that meaning like schedule your appointments, schedule appointments.

So say for example, a patient is, I see a patient and I'm really late seeing them. I'm behind at the end. I'm like, I'm going to make sure you are scheduled for nine o'clock. That's when I start at your next visit. So I ensure that. So that they are assured that I care about them, but you know, I'm just trying to give them the best way to navigate the whole system for their own self care, though, I've recently, and I'm in the progress of working on this, I have a little program, a program, but a project I'm doing actually for my board recertification.

Holistic Wellness Approach

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: And so mine is helping patients identify the three parts of their wellness, their spiritual health, their mental health and their physical health. And so what I have them do is grade it on a scale of one to five. One is terrible. Five is excellent. Three is so so. And so for each domain, I first define what the spiritual health is, whatever your connection is to a higher power.

The second level for mental health is your relationship with yourself, which includes your mind, your will, your emotions. And then the third one for the physical health is how you relate to the outside world. So I have the patients grade themselves and so based on those grades, we kind of figure out which one needs to improve.

So for example, specifically patient I've checked on this week, she graded her spiritual health and her mental health as a five, but then her physical health was a three. So I asked her, why is your physical health a three? And she said, because she has lupus and diabetes, all these other things. But for her, it was a three because she gets so nervous when it's time for her to give her annual, I mean, her weekly injection of her lupus medication.

She gets really nervous. So what I said to her, how about this? Since you have strengths in the spiritual and the mental, why don't you pray before you give yourself injection? And she also recognized that when she's just injection after she feels good. So why don't you pray before your injection, ask God to help you calm down, realize the benefits of the injection afterwards, so that when you time to give it to yourself, you won't feel out of sorts because for her three was only because of that part, because she got no injection.

So she did that. I followed up with her and she felt good and she was able to do the injection without any problems. So my point is helping patients realize they have more than one dimension, help them to realize those dimensions and see how they can kind of use their strengths to help them work with their weaknesses for whatever those dimensions.

Theo Harvey: No, I love that. You know, putting a structure around how they can kind of help themselves and then obviously be prepared, but also, helping the physician to give insights to what's best for them to reach out for the patient to reach out to them. So what time is the best for them? I'm looking at these three T's, right?

You know, being transparent, truthfulness, and then having a testimony and then kind of communicating that over and over again to the patient. When you kind of have your care, I think that can help a lot of patients and physicians, especially with that communication channel, because I think with healthcare, we're seeing is just, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, There's so many different things, quality measures, meaningful use.

You have to, you know, make sure you get your 15 minutes. You look at RVUs, how much time are you spending with the patient? How do you maximize the time so you can give them the best care possible? And I think, you know, what you're doing around telling your testimonies so they can trust you more and understand that.

Providing information about the truth, like what's real and what's not. Right. And then constantly communicating that to them over and over again, I think is really key. Now, this is great insight. 

Connecting with Patients on Social Media

Theo Harvey: Um, I think a lot of the physicians that we talked to that listen to stuff like this can take this to heart, but yeah, where can they find you, uh, on those shows?

Obviously you're doing great work there and that's how we found you, but what other things do you have planned for the coming year? Uh, talking about your story, but more importantly, helping other physicians and other patients, right. Deal with mental health. 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: Thank you for asking. Um, and I like the TTTs that you came up with.

Did you come up with that yourself? I did, yes I did. Before I talk about what I'm doing, I want to also add one thing that's helpful for clinicians and for patients is no matter what is going on with the patient's situation, whether they have uncontrolled diabetes or whatever the case is, I always try to find something that's good.

Like something that's positive about their situation. For example, I hadn't seen a patient a long time. Uh, well I said long time. I hadn't seen her since like May and it was like October. Um, but usually she was a little bit more frequent and following up. So she kind of fell off a little bit, was taking care of things in life, whatever.

But she had lost like 20 pounds. And it wasn't in a healthy way. It wasn't a stress or whatever. It was actually, she was being conscientious about losing it and she needed to because she was morbidly obese. BMI was more than 40. And so I was telling her, wow, it's good to see you again, but I'm really impressed by the weight that you've lost.

You know, So it wasn't just like, girl, where have you been? You have been following up. What's wrong with you? That's like that. It was like, I was able to say, okay, wow, I'm really impressed. What did you do? And kind of help her feel good about it. On the other end, let's say a patient has, um, diabetes and that's, you know, not well controlled, but I'll say your blood pressure is good.

Like, I am so impressed with your blood pressure, and I make a big deal out of it because everyone doesn't have that situation going on. And because of my frame of reference, I'm able to see all kinds of issues and challenges that I'm able to highlight what is good because you can easily take that for granted because that's not your situation.

You know what I mean? So I, I highlight it and let's say a patient is like, I have this, oh my gosh, he's 83 and he is like, oh my gosh, he's like on no medications. 

Theo Harvey: Oh, wow. 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: Right. And he's in his right mind and he's, oh my gosh, whoo. And I did the whole, you know, the, the levels of wellness for him, but he said four, four, four.

And so he didn't really know what to work on. So I kind of helped him out with that, but he legit, he's got his stuff together. I mean, I mean, he wasn't lying. He wasn't making up how he feels. I mean, he only wasn't saying a five just because I think he has wisdom to know that nothing's always perfect I think that's probably why he did that because he knew I would have called him out on that.

I'm like, no, so Um, no, so my point is there's everyone has different strengths weaknesses, whatever So I like to highlight what is good no matter what in regards to connecting with me. Um, I am on instagram at um, this underscore md underscore kalaki k a l a k i However, my page is not really You How can I explain it?

I'm a hope dealer, is what I call myself. I'm a 

Theo Harvey: hope dealer. 

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: I deal hope, supplied by Jesus Christ, because that's my source. So, and it's not preachy preachy, and it's not ADHD for life, even though it is, and it's not, Oh, I killed myself, almost, I wanted to kill myself, I'm here. It's just me being me, and whatever I can do to uplift, give hope, I'm there for that.

Everything I do is intentional. It's like, what is the purpose? What is, what am I trying to, like, what, if I show a picture of myself, it's not just to be cute, it's to have a message to it. I have like three things that are backlogged. Sorry about your time. Three things that are backlogged for posts that are kind of old, but they're still relevant because think about it.

We watch old movies, right? That's my thought process. So even though I did a suicide prevention walk this year on September 29th, I haven't even posted the things about that. But we always look at history, right? We look at 9 11. That happened 23 years ago. We look at stuff. So that's how I'm justified in my mind.

Even though it's an ADHD thing, I just haven't pushed the button to put it out there. And I'm a perfectionist a little bit sometimes, so that I'm not like ready for it yet. Anyway, that's where you can find me there on Instagram. 

ADHD Awareness and Support

Dr.Kalaki Clarke, MD: Next month, actually, there's an annual ADHD conference that's happening in Anaheim, California that I am going to be presenting during like what they call an innovative session.

So between two o'clock and five o'clock on November 14th, I will be giving a little presentation about how to support physicians with ADHD during residency training. Basically, it's like a blueprint for program directors, schools, whoever, to ADHD during residency. It's actually just like helping to acknowledge what it is because a lot of doctors do not really understand that it's not fake.

It's real. It's a neurobiological developmental challenge. So it's not mental illness. It is a trait. Let's put it this way. Some people are tall, some people are short, some people have neurodivergent brains. So it's not a mental illness. It can make you anxious sometimes, but it's not. I mean, it's in DSM four or five rather as a, you know, diagnosis.

As it's neural developmental. Condition at birth. I did not have ADHD when I turned 35 and found out about it. It was from childhood, but as a girl with females, we present differently. We're not jumping all over the walls like men can present like the little boys were daydreaming. We're messy. We're taking too long to do things.

We're all over the place. We lose stuff all the time. That's more so like the presentation. But then when we get older and we can't handle all the things of life, we can't mask anymore behind our intellect because our intellect has nothing to do with our ability to Time management, prioritize and self regulate and those kind of ways, just a little blur on the ADHD thing.

So I'm passionate about that because I'm able to educate everybody who comes to the event and then I'm part of, I got asked to be part of a primary care ADHD advisory board from an organization I won't mention that I'll go to a meeting in Florida, Chicago in December. So that's that. 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Theo Harvey: Well, Dr. Clarke, thank you so much for your time.

Um, I love it. Appreciate you as well. Everyone, please take these insights to heart as you kind of deal with your own mental health. But more importantly, as you help your patients walk through their journeys. So this has been insightful. So everyone, thank you for your time. Listen again to the next podcast where we kind of help everybody navigate this new normal of health care.

Take care.