Hot Takes: Dog Portraits, Sunday Scaries, and Why I Answer Comments

This round of hot takes isn't medical, and it isn't even about wellness trends. It's personal. You asked, so here you go.

I'm not sure I'd call it dumb, because I think it's kind of awesome. But I'm aware a lot of people would put it in the dumb column.

I spent my adult money on portraits of my dogs. No regrets.

First, the honest part: I do get the Sunday scaries.

And I genuinely love my job. The Sunday feeling still shows up. So my routine is built entirely around being calm:

• Pilates on Sunday afternoon (no surprise to anyone who's heard me rank Pilates above every other workout)
• Laundry and cleaning done, ideally before the evening
• No cooking. I don't like to cook on Sunday, so I usually order out
• Everything mellow
• Bed early

That's it. No optimization, no elaborate reset ritual. Just removing friction from the evening and going to sleep.

I'm not much of a crier. I don't generally cry about personal situations. But sometimes a movie will get me good.

Most recently, I got a little emotional listening to an audiobook: The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, which was recommended to me by a patient. The end of it was quite moving, and what struck me was how much I fell in love with the character.

I got a little teary eyed. I'm not going to lie.

What I personally like about it comes down to two things: authenticity, and the ability to engage with the audience.

I love answering questions. If you follow me, you already know that's most of what I do. And the reason isn't just that it's good content:

Here's what I mean. Being on here has taught me what my patients are actually interested in. People are not always comfortable asking in the office. But from the anonymity of a TikTok account, they absolutely will.

So I've learned what people genuinely want to know before they ever come see me as a patient. That changes how I run a consultation, and it's why I keep doing this. (For the less pleasant side of having a platform, I've written separately about what happens when unwell people target physicians online.)

Dog portraits: worth it. Sunday scaries: real, even when you love your job, and best handled by making the evening as boring as possible. The last thing that made me tear up was a novel a patient told me to read.

And the reason I'm on here answering your questions is genuinely selfish: it makes me better at my actual job. Keep asking them.