As she spoke recently to more than 300 members of the WMed community – faculty, residents, students and staff – physician and author Kelli Harding, Đ²ĘÍř, MPH, had one thing she wanted to make sure stuck with them.
“We have to take better care of each other,” Dr. Harding said. “If you remember nothing else from this talk, please remember that.”
Dr. Harding delivered her message on September 22 during this year’s Common Read, an annual program now in its seventh year that provides a shared learning experience for WMedĚýstudents, residents, faculty, and staff. Dr. Harding’s book, “The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness,” was this year’s selection for Common Read and her presentation was held virtually via Microsoft Teams in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Liz Lorbeer, chair and associate professor in the Department of Medical Library, leads the event, which she said serves to broaden the concepts of what it means to be aĚýhealthcare practitioner and build the learning community at the medical school. The event is funded through the generosity of PNC Bank and the Victor A. Berglund M.D. Endowment for Continuing Đ²ĘÍř.
“Each year, my hope is that we read a book that challenges us, that challenges our position or perception of a topic,” Lorbeer said. “That our own ideology or outlook is challenged”
“The Rabbit Effect,” which was published in 2019, draws its inspiration from a scientific experiment conducted in 1978 that sought to identify the relationship between high cholesterol and heart health in rabbits.Ěý
During her presentation for this year’s Common Read, Dr. Harding recounted how the rabbits were nearly genetically identical and fed the same high fat diet, but one group of rabbits had far better outcomes than the others, leading researchers to wonder why. The answer, she said, was found in a caring postdoctoral fellow who pet and spoke to the rabbits as she fed them.
“They realized they were on to some finding they couldn’t ignore,” said Dr. Harding, who serves as an assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. “Ample data shows the biggest contributor to our health is our everyday social world and how we are treated matters deeply to our health. This is what we call the social determinants of health and what everyone outside of healthcare calls kindness.”
Dr. Harding’s book delves into new research that shows how love, friendship, community, a person’s feeling of purpose and their environment can impact their health in ways much greater than any treatment they might receive from their physician. During her presentation for Common Read, she recalled her experience as an emergency room physician in New York where she would regularly see similar patients who had vastly different health outcomes because of factors such as race and education level, among many others.
“I went to medical school to learn absolutely everything I could about the human body,” Dr. Harding said. “My superpowers were medications in my doctor’s bag but I saw the mismatch between the textbook and the complicated issues of life.”
That reality, Dr. Harding said, prompted her to seek out more information about the factors outside of medicine that were impacting patients’ health – the social determinants of health – and led to her writing “The Rabbit Effect.”
“Kindness is something every human being understands,” Dr. Harding said. “Hugs boost the immune system. In terms of work, we know that our work culture is important and having a good doctor is just as important as having a good supervisor. People who work in supportive environments take less sick leave and decrease employer health costs by as much as 50 percent.”
Even more, Dr. Harding said, people with a sense of purpose in life have a significantly reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other ailments.
“I wish I would have understood this when I started medical school,” Dr. Harding said. “Our relationships and kindness in all areas of our life profoundly shape our physical and mental health. It is a tremendous privilege to wear a white coat and we have to remember that healing goes beyond the hospital. Be a supportive friend and family member, be a thoughtful, involved citizen and try to remember every day all that we have in common.”
Dr. Harding said that kindness has taken on an even greater importance in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had an immense impact nationwide on mental health as Americans have dealt with social isolation and job loss, among other things.
“COVID presents significant challenges,” she said. “It has highlighted for everyone how important connection is and that we have to be far more intentional about seeking connections … You are living through an extraordinary time.”
Despite all of those concerns, Dr. Harding reminded the WMed community that physicians and future physicians can play a role in improving the health of the patients they come into contact with by focusing on – and understanding – the communities they serve.
“You have more power to make a positive impact than you realize,” she said. “I think a lot of doctors just feel like your nose is to the grindstone but if there is any message in this it is that health is about what’s happening in our communities and it takes all of you to support your community and support health programs or park programs because things like that have such a huge impact on the health of the citizens you serve.”
Lorbeer said she felt – based on feedback she received – that Dr. Harding’s book resonated with students and other members of the WMed community. In previous years, books selected for Common Read have been about a range of topics, from killer genes and suicide to HIV and the Flint water crisis.
“You just felt good after reading the book and I think the topic reflects who we are as WMed,” Lorbeer said. “We’re very caring and kind and focused on patient care and I think it resonates that, as physicians, future physicians, and healers, we can participate in patients’ well-being and help them get back to the quality of life that they are seeking.”
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