BY JOHN M. OLDAM, MD & LOIS B. MORRIS When the going gets rough, check your personality for its resilience quotient. Resilience is the ability to cope with adversity, a most valuable trait to have in rough and tough times. The last time we blogged about stress and resilience was in May 2021: “Personality and […]
BY JOHN M. OLDHAM, MD, & LOIS B. MORRIS Anybody who has a pet knows that each one has its own personality style. Maybe you have, say, two cocker spaniels. They’re bred to be alike in temperament. So how come one resists training while the other seems to anticipate your every desire? And cats! […]
BY JOHN M. OLDHAM, MD As we enter a new year, let’s hope it’s a better one. Who’s to blame? Can we forgive? Filled with calamities, 2021 should not be hard to beat, but who knows? Hard to see much light at the end of the pandemic tunnel or the climate tunnel, or to see […]
BY JOHN M. OLDHAM, MD Do cat people and dog people have distinctly different personality styles? There’s a lot of opinion out there about this—there’s even a Wikipedia site called “Cat people and dog people.” Then there’s our much-viewed blog from early 2019, “Are You a Cat Person?” I’ve been mulling this over since last […]
BY JOHN M. OLDHAM, M.D. & LOIS B. MORRIS No matter how resilient our personality styles may be, we are all susceptible to the radical stress of a year of social isolation. We humans are social animals. Whether we’re naturally outgoing or reserved, we need to be with each other. Adjusting to constraint is hard […]
BY JOHN M. OLDHAM, M.D., & LOIS B. MORRIS “Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention,” said the writer Howard Rheingold. This maxim is a favorite of a theoretical physicist named Michael Goldhaber. He is “the internet prophet you’ve never heard of,” according to New York Times Opinion writer […]
BY JOHN M. OLDHAM, MD How to be a good leader: Learn by listening. That struck me as the main message of a small book sent to department chairs throughout the country some time ago by the American Association of Medical Schools. I’ve tried to do just that throughout my career, sometimes more successfully than […]
