Earthquakes are a part of life here, but riding one out can be an awakening experience. — I awoke in the middle of the night to the bed shaking, not in a good way. The bed was rocking enough to pull Heidi and me from a sound sleep, and it continued to shake forcefully but not violently for several seconds more before it subsided. The trembling was…

It’s not a question of whether the glass is half full or half empty, but why doesn’t it stay full? — They tell us that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who see the glass as half empty or half full. But “They” miss the fundamental question: why doesn’t the glass stay full? The answer is that the glass leaks. Don’t need me to tell you that…

A good life can be more than the pursuit of pleasure or purpose. Learn why you should add richness to your life and how to do it. — Three Ways to a Good Life People have contemplated how to live a good life for at least two thousand years. And for most of that time, the philosophical debate has rebounded between two options; to live for happiness or meaning. Recently, science has uncovered a third way to live a good life; psychological richness.

A humorous look at Kiwi healthcare. — Working as a doctor in New Zealand has required me to relearn some medical language. I don’t just mean the crazy way they spell esophagus with an “o” at the beginning, nor the unnecessary letters added to words like diarrhoea. …

Sometimes you just have to jump whether you are ready or not. — Featured in Op-Med, a collection of original articles contributed by Doximity members. When your ankles are tied together, you don’t so much walk as shuffle. So when the man told me to walk forward, I hobbled to the end of the edge of the precipice and looked out on nothing…

A visit to one of the most amazing coastal villages on the South Island of New Zealand. — A New Zealand town we recently visited has made international news, not because we were there. Instead, it was for less happy reasons that this small, quiet seaside hamlet had gained notoriety. This nature-focused community made the world headlines on a calm and tranquil day when five people in a…

Accepting that you can’t do everything means you can focus on what matters most. — You will never get it all done. There is too much to do. That may sound hopeless, but I hope to convince you that accepting these facts will make you feel better about life. My Bad Example For the first decade of my career as a surgeon, I believed I needed to care…

The cure for my obesity came from something bigger than dieting or an exercise plan. — I thought being fat made me miserable, but is it possible that I got fat because I was unhappy? My Story I was in my surgical residency when I went all wrong. But there had been hints of an impending disaster while I was still in medical school. To meet the extreme…

A family from Colorado who moved to New Zealand take a ski trip in the Southern Alps in July to see how the conditions compared to the Colorado resorts. — I stand at the end of a windswept quay where a river of fresh water runs off the mountains to rejoin the salty sea. It’s a cold day, and despite possum fur gloves, my hands are going numb as I fumble with the settings on my camera. Yet, a few…