Research

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When I was little, I relished trips to my aunt Sadie and uncle Irving’s farm.  There were many reasons, including the freedom to run free with my brother in the sweet-smelling grass, in the country air.

The best reasons, however, were the chickens. Read more on I Have Always Loved Chickens…

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It happened several years ago, when one of the immigrants of Mexican origin I frequently saw as a patient in the poorer counties of California came to see me and pulled a pen and a steno pad out of her purse.  My Spanish was a bit more rudimentary than it is now. She was matronly, with mostly grayed hair in the classic bun.  She asked me if I could spend a few extra minutes with her.  I told her I would take all the time I could, and try to serve her needs. It wasn’t her, she said.  It was her youngest daughter, aged 13.  Read more on Delayed Gratification And Life…

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He was just 18. He had been followed by child psychiatry with a diagnosis of depression. He had long refused to take any pills.  As far as this poor, agricultural county was concerned, I was just seeing him so I could bill MediCal and fatten up the county coffers. The previous psychiatrists had simply noted he was depressed, was not suicidal, and refused any participation in his own treatment.

He was a young man of few words, with a common Hispanic name.  He sat there and twirled one of his lush curls. It became pretty obvious he wasn’t going to give me a complete history.  He said he would never take pills, not ever. To his credit, he did say I could talk to his mother, if I wanted to, but he had to be in the room and hear what she said. Someone brought her to me, from the waiting room.  She spoke only Spanish; fine with me. I learned my Spanish mostly from my patients, who in that time and place could rarely communicate well in either Spanish or English. His mother was charming, really grateful that I wanted to talk to her. She kept complimenting my clothes and elegance. I told her it was all thrift shop.  I doubt she believed me. Read more on Diagnosis From The Guts…

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cropped-kitfoxyawn.jpgAfter a year (?) of downtime, the site is back online!

 

 

 

 

 

(Test Post, Wade please comment to make sure everything’s good.)

Filed under Sitelog by on . Comment#

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I don’t think we plan what our real specialties are going to be.

I frequently tell patients I am an expert on getting through menopause now that I have been able to come through my own relatively unscathed.

I became somewhat of an expert on Asperger’s because I diagnosed many elements of it in my father and just about all criteria in my brother.

They both carried additional diagnoses of bipolar (a.k.a. ‘manic-depressive’) illness.  Neither one was in any way typical.

Both surely had their problems in life.  My father was assisted considerably by his domineering mother who gave him lots — I mean lots — of direction.  She even helped him choose a wife — my mother — who took care of the things in life that were difficult or even impossible for him. Read more on From Sandy Hook to Santa Barbara — Asperger’s Syndrome And Violence…

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I do not claim to be perfect but I DO claim to be a good doctor.  Not just a good psychiatrist.  Being a good doctor comes first.

One reason is that despite a lot of medical practice since graduation (I will admit to wincing a bit when I quote the figure in years–34) in multiple specialties, I still believe that taking care of other human beings and trying to help them through life is a sacred trust.  I actually believe that doing what I do the best I can is more important to whatever religious future my soul can scrape up than showing up at public worship.  Honest.

Another reason that I am a good doctor is that I am old enough that an amazing amount of bad medical things have happened to me.  Often before I knew better, they were the side effects of prescription drugs.  I now accept them only as temporary solutions.  I would rather dive into the world of alternative natural substances — which do work — if the practitioner is someone who knows what they are doing which I do. Read more on Cholesterol Lowering and Drugs…

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Okay, so they found a stimulant, a long-named never tested member of the amphetamine family a body building type supplement; not listed on the label, never studied in humans.  I can’t count how many laws were broken.  So they can throw the responsible party in jail and stop this sort of thing, right? Wrong.

Read more on One Craze I Hope Won’t Catch On…

Filed under Government, News, Research by on . Comment#

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The Yahoo coverage says two Americans and one German American won the prize.

My bet for the most accurate reporting is the New York Times article that says three Americans won the prize.

This is mainly because I remember I wanted to leave France and return stateside with a French citizenship as a souvenir.  I found out from American authorities that if I wanted to take any kind of oath of allegiance to any country that was not the U.S. of A., then the U.S. of A. would consider it a renouncement of citizenship. Read more on You May Shut Down The Government, But Don’t Shut Down Science!…

Filed under News, politics, Research, Science by on . Comment#

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Alright, so I am a cynic.  It seems like the very public change of position of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a mainstream doctor who presents  mainstream medicine in the media is on the level with religious conversion among the missionaries.

Then, only today, I saw an article by the chief and deputy chief of NORML — an organization I am also blogging for.  Most folks seem to think marijuana should be freely available.

Read more on Like Me — More Experts Are Changing Their Mind About Medicinal Marijuana…

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Men.  They really are different. They are psycho-socially different; this has provided for generations of standup comedy material about their inability to ask for directions when they are driving and lost, as well as their inability to move toward a restroom in groups. They got issues.

I learned a lot about this when studying and teaching psychotherapy.  It seems you can’t get men into psychotherapy unless they are adolescents, post-andropause, or gay. Read more on Men Aren’t What They Used To Be…