203: The Human Journalist

Dr. Elissa Ely. Hear the full interview on iTunes!

The free podcast of this episode is available on our iTunes page!

This past Sunday, we were joined by Dr. Elissa Ely (left) — a psychiatrist in Boston, MA and an accomplished journalist, contributing regular Op-Ed pieces to The New York Times and The Boston Globe. As she mentioned when we asked her about medical journalism, she considers herself not necessarily to be a medical journalist but to be a “human journalist.”

Dr. Ely talked about the human interactions that can be so fleeting yet profound; these are interactions that underlie not just medicine but everyday life. She also discussed the concept of “caring too much” for a patient, as well as the options for physicians who themselves deal with psychiatric issues on their own.