Research in psychology abounds, but “naturalistic” research does not.
I am impressed by these nice female medical doctors on the faculty of the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco for the work they have done. Read more on Medical Student Evaluations…
Have you ever felt that your doctor just isn’t listening to you?Now multiply that by a hundred and you will start to understand what happens when a mentally ill person has a serious physical illness.
A news story on a recent study about how patients with a psychiatric diagnosis are prioritized at the bottom of the list when presenting at an emergency room induced a flashback when I was a young and eager resident psychiatrist on ER duty.
I was dedicated and enthusiastic – some said idealistic – and proud of knowledge obtained not without difficulty. The event I recalled was a 39-year-old schizophrenic man coming in with chest pain and trouble breathing. Maybe he seemed a little young for a heart attack, but gasping for air, clutching his chest and crying with pain. Serious complaints that ought to be treated seriously until proven otherwise. Read more on Mentally Ill Have Low Priority In Emergencies…
Filed under Prejudice by on Aug 24th, 2011. Comment. 
He was 19. I saw that on his papers before I let him into the office. I knew it meant trouble.
Someone who was only 19 and was in the county mental health system had to be either big trouble or a big manipulator. Working with adolescents is tough for me because I have to “set limits;” often yell and scream. That is absolutely not my favorite way to be a psychiatrist, to read people the riot act. But 19 year olds often need that.
I sometimes have to be more of a surrogate mother than a psychiatrist.
He had been recently hospitalized for a “psychotic break.” That is when someone who is alleged to be normal suddenly starts hearing voices and seeing things. It’s not always mental illness — maybe some drugs on board, maybe some kind of stress. At least I had the records from the hospitalization.
Yeah, drugs on board. Some speed, some pot. The “baby-momma” of his first child (God, was he proud) was no “fun” anymore. She wanted things like child support — clearly not a “fun” request.
Now I have read some recent studies from other countries — this is not the kind of thing they do here — that when there is the risk of hereditary pathology you can feed a kid Omega-3 fish oil and maybe prevent this “psychotic break” — or at least delay it. And yes — to me someone 18 or 19 years old is still a kid. Read more on You Can’t Help Me Unless You Are Like Me…
Filed under Prejudice by on Sep 15th, 2010. Comment.
Body mass index cutoff for college graduation? Give me a break.
It is idiotic to foster prejudice against the obese at an institution of higher learning when we know that people are discriminated against for jobs by their weight. To offer courses and help is good. To confound intellectual output with girth is just plain stupid.
Has anyone ever been refused a university degree because they failed to quit smoking? Has anyone ever been refused a degree for non-compliance with any kind of medical treatment? Obese people do not get the same quality of medical care as non-obese people. Yes, there are lifestyle changes that seem to be able to help. But there are also a large variety of putative interventions that may help, or theories. Obese people do not even get the right size of chairs or gowns when they get into a doctor’s office. Read more on A College Degree Based On Your Figure…
Filed under Prejudice by on Jan 19th, 2010. Comment.
We want religious freedom, which is good. We do not want prejudice that is unfounded. We do not want people to preach or incite sedition. We have no interest in disguises of sedition as religion.
We have problems with anything that gets in the way of freedom. We love popular votes, and want to see the president of the United States elected directly some day, so the people have the sovereignty that Jefferson had in mind. Radical factions corrected by some sort of wisdom, perhaps divine in origin, that flows down among honest and intelligent and diverse groups, so that they somehow exercise a sort of internal control, and radical factions cancel each other out.
I have no idea how a referendum about minarets made it to the Swiss ballot. It seems that most people there don’t want these public symbols of the Islamic faith. There is a nice photo in the Wikipedia article of a plastic minaret of Turkish construction that someone put on a cultural center in Switzerland for what I suppose are religious reasons.
Read more on Minarets in Switzerland: Can’t We All Get Along?…
Filed under Prejudice by on Nov 30th, 2009. Comment.