My talk at UCLA Tuesday was a smashing success! One person told me she has been going to psychiatry grand rounds since the 90’s and I got the first standing ovation she’s ever seen. I’ve uploaded the video and you can watch it below. If you’re reading this in email, click here to watch it directly on my blog.
I hope I inspire other healthcare providers with the message that our presence and compassion with patients doesn’t just help them feel better—it heals.
Excellent talk, Elana! So, so true! Love heals. I don’t know how you did that. I could barely leave the house when I was on chemo. You are incredibly strong. Bravo!
Bravo, Elana! *clapping enthusiastically* I know that took a lot of courage, but you didn’t even look nervous. You were so confident up there on stage. You’re a natural and I’m so proud of you. You really connected with the audience. They understood the importance of empathy. It’s just the beginning for you!
Take care and let us know how you’re doing,
Melanie
Amazing. I enjoyed watching you speak and seeing where you are today after following your journey these past 9 mos. you are a force to be reckoned with.
Beautiful talk. I am so proud you summoned the strength and courage to say what is really the most important thing, love matters. thank you! xoxox shelley
That was really great to hear! I am a counsellor myself and as complex a situation that people are in and the very many approaches a counsellor can take in trying to help, it’s the relationship that matters the most to the client.
Really, there are no words. Excellent talk from the heart.
AWESOME, and beautifully delivered. You covered elements that we don’t think about. Thank you. xoxo
Thank you for sharing. You are destined to make a difference in others’ lives. Your passion is crystal clear. Keep up the great fight and great work!
Thank you Elana,
So beautiful to hear and see you. I have been following you for the past nine months
as well. I hold space for you always. Love is all that matters and your talk really brought that
home for me.
Thank you … You are my hero.
Wow! Congratulations, Elana! What an amazing person you are!
Brave, heartfelt and the core of all care! Bravo indeed. I have practiced psychology for 40 years, and you already have the wisdom of decades.
Simply amazing, Elana. Gave me chills. Thank you for this.
Way to go, Elana! You are an inspiration. I am behind you cheering you on.
Thanks so much for sharing. I’m in healthcare myself & am now a pt w/ cancer. Although, I started following you before I had cancer. I couldn’t agree more. I’m glad you were willing to push through & do it.
Wow, thank you for sharing this. As a medical social worker, I often wonder whether I’m really helping at all… Especially when it seems the only thing I can offer people is my presence, understanding and compassion. Thank you for this.
Thank you. I follow your blog, and watched this today. I sent it to all of my healers, friends and
people who buoy me up. I am a clinical social worker with Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer. I have two adopted girls who are 11, and I need to be here for them, and I set my intentions on being here and vital for them and my wife and great family and circle of friends for as long as possible.
Thanks for taking that step up there to educate and inform, and be who you are.
It sounds like it took a lot to get there and we all appreciate you.
Fondly,
Liz Schwarz, Boston, MA
Who better to make a point to doctors than a doctor who has ‘been there, done that’? Awesome talk, Elaina! Thousands of patients will benefit from even the most subtle changes the doctors in your audience will make because of your insightful, touching words! Once again, you’ve shown what an incredible person you are and what an incredible impact you make on others!!
Elana,
Yes, indeed your work is NOT done.
This talk was awesome and it reminded me to be better about keeping in touch with all my connections, too.
Thank you for everything you do to help us all to have a better understanding of love and its power.
Cheryl
Thank you Elana,
Your journey has given you clarity and by you sharing your experience and insight you lift us all up and help us open our hearts and count our blessings.
I read your blog when you pop into my InBox because I know your wisdom will be raw and true and you will touch something deep in me that will make me a better person.
Again- I say THANK YOU!
Wonderful talk. You are beautiful, you are strong.
You go girl.
Well done Elena. Bravo to you!
k
Really great! You have a very distinct voice in your writing, but I really enjoyed hearing you speak! Good for you for giving such a wonderful and thought-provoking talk. As a scientist I am very much focused on data and controls and quantitative analyses in my daily routine, but there are some things we can not always explain. Are these things we just don’t understand yet? I agree that love is important in treatment (there are plenty of studies to support that it is as you showed)- and now I am interested in how it works? The scientist in me can’t wait to better understand the molecular underpinnings/neural circuitry at play. Your take-home message is so important. Everyone has said this and I have to repeat it, you are fabulous!
Kudos to you Elana. You were elegant in stature and speech. How wonderful for those listening to hear factual / statistical information, but most importantly to hear it from someone who not only is passionate about her chosen field, but because of her current life experience can add a depth of feeling that most (fortunately) cannot because we have not been dealt the same hand. But you bring reality to if in a way that teaches the heart as well as the mind. You are bound for great things!
Alana, thanks so much! Amazing and so wise! Thanks again for shaing this! Amazing work! Thanks for sharing your love.
Well done ! Health care professionals , some of them anyway , need to hear this . It is the compassion, the relationship, that helps the medicine heal the patient. You have a huge contribution to make to your field . You are a gifted doctor and healer
Good Job Elana!!!!!! So proud of you:))) you are awesome and so glad you are doing so well. Jeff joins me in love and prayers for you!
I loved this Elana. Thinking about you, and constantly in awe of your ferocity….
Excellent talk. As you say the single-minded pursuit of evidence based medicine can overstep other forms of knowledge and intuition, even marginalizing deep, human things we all know to be true, but may be too amorphous to prove and measure.
This makes me think of mindfulness meditation, a now ubiquitous and proven technique practiced in modern mental health facilities everywhere- ACT, DBT, MBSR etc are go to therapies which incorporate mindfulness, it’s used with Depression, Borderline, ED, etc and I use it with extreme, treatment refractory OCD everyday at work, with incredible results. It’s ability to change ones relationship to their obsessive thoughts, and increase the ability to sit with the resultant anxiety, instead of resorting to ritual, in unparalleled. This practice is not new, it’s thousands of years old, but before fMRI and other double-blinded data studies (the relaxation response et al) it was written off. How many millions of psychiatric patients could have benefited from something that millennia’s worth of mystics knew to work, but was lacking in data?
Awesome talk, I look forward to your newsletters