Sleep Matters

Although most people spend about a third of their time in bed, all too often people struggle to get deep and restful sleep. Sleep is essential to our bodies for maintaining mental and physical health, and it helps to repair and restore our brains. It’s reported that 50 to 70 million Americans have chronic sleep disorders, with the most common sleep disorders being insomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, and narcolepsy.

Today the doctor is in to answer your questions about sleep, and how to know when you need help from a medical professional to prevent health issues related to sleep disruptions.

Listen now to About Health on KPFA.org, 94.1 FM

https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=409450

Guest:

Kin M. Yuen, M.D., M.S. Dr. Kin Yuen is a board-certified physician in sleep medicine working with Bay Sleep Clinic. She is an assistant professor at UCSF and Adjunct associate professor at Stanford University. She completed her Master of Science degree in Health Services Research and her post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University.  Her research interests include sleep disorders especially in women and children, cardiac arrhythmia, and the use of medical devices in sleep.  

Conversations About Death

Death is a part of life, but too often people are afraid to talk about their fears about dying, and their priorities for care at the end of life. Many people find themselves in challenging situations when they are faced with a dying relative or friend, not sure what steps to take to honor the dying person’s wishes.

Are you prepared? Do you have a will? An advanced health care directive? If not, you are not alone. 

** Listen now to About Health (9/11/23) ** https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=407174

Let’s talk about death and about communicating with the people we love while we can. 

Guest

Eileen Spillane is the founder of Befriending Death, a platform that offers the signature course “Let’s Chat About Death” as well as 1:1 coaching, a book club, and community gatherings. Her motivation to create these courses came from many years as a Critical Care Nurse witnessing unnecessary suffering. Her hope is to normalize conversations around death with a supportive, friendly community, so life and death decisions can be approached long before one is hospitalized. In addition to working as a Registered Nurse for the last thirty three years, Eileen is a meditation and dharma teacher, and works as an active travel guide for international hiking and biking trips. She is a former Zen Hospice Project volunteer and a trained end of life doula.

Eileen offers a free book club. In October, she will have two authors joining for a discussion:

  • Joanne Cacciatore, author of Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief on 10/10 9:30 AM PST

  • Sally Tisdale, author of A Guide For Future Corpses: A Practical Perspective on Death And Dying 10/12 5 PM PST

To learn more about her work and offerings go to https://www.befriendingdeath.com/

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy

Listen here to today’s show (4/10/23) on 94.1FM—KPFA.org

https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=398972

From microdosing mushrooms, to ecstasy, to Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), the Bay Area is home to what some are calling a psychedelic renaissance.

Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is a treatment method that involves utilizing ketamine to help patients struggling to find relief from mental health symptoms such as resistant depression, post-partum depression, terminal illness anxiety, or PTSD. It is also used by some to explore existential and spiritual questions about their life.

Join me and my guest Melissa Whippo to discuss Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. We’ll discuss why preparation before the treatment, integration afterwards, and the set and setting, are so important in this treatment model.

Guest:

Melissa Whippo is a licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga instructor, and practitioner of sacred herbalism. She has guided thousands of women through transformational experiences, from motherhood to the ceremonial. Her work focuses on holistic healing, liminal self discovery, and sacred reciprocity. Clinically, she incorporates aspects of attachment theory, object relations, internal family systems, and has a keen interest in dreamwork and authentic movement. She has been practicing Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy since 2019 and has been a lead trainer with the Ketamine Training Center and Inbodied Life. She is pioneering research on postpartum depression and psychedelics. Learn more at www.melissawhippo.com

Resources:

-The Fireside Project is a help and harm-reduction site for people working with psychedelics.

-MAPS is a foundation working in clinical research Phase 3 trials for psilocybin and MDMA.

-The Beckley Foundation is a female-founded psychedelic research organization in the U.K. that also runs retreats in Jamaica, where psilocybin is legal.

-Erowid is a longtime online source of information for all things psychedelic, including sourcing and dosing.

-Reddit has several subreddits dedicated to psychedelics, including resource materials, sourcing and dosing.

-The Ancestor Project is a source of support for psychedelic use and integration focused on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color).

Community Health Access at Street Level Health Project

Listen now to the 7/1/19 show on About Health, KPFA.org (94.1FM), on the needs of vulnerable, underinsured, uninsured, refugee, and immigrant people seeking community medical care.

https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=313587

We discussed the special needs of communities to reduce the incidence of preventable malnutrition and chronic illness. 

Since 2002, Street Level Health has responded to the needs of a community who is 93% foreign-born with almost half (43%) having resided in the U.S. for less than three years.

 

Guests

Gabriela Galicia is currently serving as the Executive Director at Street Level Health Project in Oakland, California. She grew up in Southern California the daughter of immigrant parents, in a predominantly Latino low income, low resourced, immigrant and people of color community. Gabriela is the first of her family to graduate from college, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in December 2009 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and a minor in Ethnic Studies with a concentration in Chicano Studies. During her time in college she continued to find her passion in community organizing and working to advocate for issues such as immigrant and workers’ rights at both the local and state level, and other issues and policies affecting the most vulnerable.

Since 2010, she has worked in different capacities and roles at Street Level Health Project. Prior to her role as Executive Director, she served as the Immigrant Rights and Empowerment Program Manager for 6 years, leading and developing the street outreach program, fostering relationships with the Oakland Day Laborers through growing and evolving community building activities. She pioneered and developed the now-established Oakland Workers’ Collective (day laborer program) that creates a safe and empowering space for day laborers and low wage workers. Gabriela strives to continue to build a safe haven for the most vulnerable, elevating their voices and developing programming which places these impacted communities in a position where they can participate with efficacy and power. Recently, she has had the honor to have been selected as one of 18 women to participate in the first cohort of the Leaderspring Women of Color 2020 fellowship program. The purpose of the Women of Color LeadStrong Fellowship is to elevate and strengthen the vision, voice, power, and leadership of women of color working for social and racial equity and justice in the social sector.

Michelle Grace Steinberg is a nutritionist, herbalist, and documentary filmmaker based in Oakland, CA. She has a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and a Master’s of Science in Human Nutrition. She completed a 3-year clinical training program at the Ohlone Center for Herbal Studies. In 2009, she started Consultas Naturistas, a free Spanish bilingual holistic nutrition and herbal medicine program at Street Level Health Project. The program serves low income, uninsured clients with consultations on holistic nutrition and wellness, and provides free herbal teas, tinctures, and supplements. Michelle received the American Herbalist Guild 2015 award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and she has contributed articles to several health care journals. She is a board member for Integrative Medicine for the Underserved. (www.im4us.org) Her latest film, BEYOND RECOGNITION was in film festivals and is currently on national public television and her current film, A PLACE TO BREATHE, explores immigrant and refugee experiences in the health care system, highlighting how communities use integrative practices to heal from trauma. www.underexposedfilms.com/a-place-to-breathe.

Responding to Emergencies

Listen here to the  6/3/19 show on KPFA.org 94.1FM on About Health

https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=311944

Emergencies require leadership and a plan, but if we are not prepared there can be chaos and precious time wasted to help the injured. Join us to discuss how to respond to emergencies and bring some order to tense situations. Call us with your questions on topics such as: CPR, water safety, wound care, traumatic falls, fire prevention, and what to do if there is a fire.

Guest:

Ken Johnson is a registered State Fire Training Instructor. His professional teaching career reaches back 35 years. He holds a Lifetime California Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential, as well as one in Fire Fighting, Fire Control and Safety. Volunteering first as a Director with Hopland Fire, Ken continued his service to Hopland as an EMT/Firefighter, then worked his way though the ranks to Chief, where he retired after 15 years with the department. With a passion for white water, Ken owned and operated North Coast Kayaking, providing white water kayak instruction and trips for over 12 years.  As an avid sailor, his “Wilderness First Aid for Sailors & other Adventurers” has become popular throughout the S.F. Bay Area. “Promoting vital emergency services, along with comfort and care to those in need within the Hopland Fire District has been the most rewarding part of my job.”

Complexities of Suicide Risk

Listen now to the show we did on KPFA, 94.1FM, on About Health, 8/27/18 https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=292821

1-800-273-8255  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call this number. The Lifeline provides 24/7 free and confidential support for people in distress, and resources for you and your loved ones. 

My guests, Eli Merritt MD, and Esme Shaller, PhD, joined me to discuss the suffering and anguish that is associated with suicide. We addressed the grief, guilt, and shame people feel when someone they love has killed themselves, and also the pain and hopelessness that a person experiences when they are considering suicide. 

Talking about suicide is challenging, but it’s vital that we TALK ABOUT IT. 

Eli Merritt, M.D., is the founder of Merritt Mental Health, a mental health and addiction care navigation company that connects patients and family members with best-fit, individualized mental health care nationwide. He is the author of Suicide Risk in the Bay Area: A Guide for Families, Physicians, Therapists, and Other Professionals, and  is currently a Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt University where he is investigating a Unified Theory of Depression. Dr Merritt has previously held positions as president of the San Francisco Psychiatric Society and as an Adjunct Clinical Faculty member at Stanford. He completed a B.A. in history at Yale, M.A. in ethics at Yale, medical degree at Case Western Reserve, medical internship at the Lahey Clinic, and residency in psychiatry at Stanford. He has written on diverse topics in medicine, psychiatry, and medical ethics, including diagnosis, insomnia and depression, addiction, suicide prevention, informed consent, and privacy issues in mental illness. He has taught medical students and resident physicians courses on psychiatric interviewing, ethical standards and boundary violations, the placebo effect, hyperthyroidism, and medical decision-making, among other subjects. 
 

Esme Shaller, Ph.D., is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Child Psychiatry at UC San Francisco and in the Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley. She is the director of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Program at UCSF and the Clinical Director of Outpatient Services for Child Psychiatry. Dr. Shaller’s passion lies in the teaching and dissemination of empirically supported treatments for complex psychological problems, particularly in adolescence. As such, she devotes a large percentage of her time to teaching and training, both within UCSF’s residency and fellowship programs and in the larger Bay Area community. She has worked with other members of her team to implement comprehensive DBT for low income teens in three California Counties. Dr. Shaller received her B.A. in psychology with highest honors from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Subsequently, she completed her psychology internship at the Zucker Hillside Hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens (where she fell in love with DBT!), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Kaiser Permanente in South San Francisco. She has been at UCSF since 2007. 

What is DBT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stz–d17ID4&feature=youtu.be