It is hard for me to digest the events of July 14 in Nice, France, as I feel especially close to them.
I was present at seven such annual patriotic ceremonies during my tenure as a student of medicine in a French government facility. I loved the street-fair atmosphere, where I sang at the top of my lungs and danced with a whole heart.
As a medical student in government service, a terrorist attack would have mobilized me into service of France, a nation I can only love, which gave me a medical education essentially free of charge, asking only for me to prove on an exam that I had what it takes.
I wear a tiny Eiffel Tower around my neck — I stroke it as I write. Read more on Terrorism In Nice…
Filed under Diagnosis, Family, Government, Mental Illness, News by on Jul 17th, 2016. Comment. 
Filed under Doctors, News, prescription drugs, Research by on Jul 4th, 2016. Comment.
It takes a high-profile celebrity death — the most recent example is Prince — to highlight problems with legally-prescribed medications such as opioids.
Pain is a horrible thing, and those who suffer any level of pain from mild to extreme are deserving of relief. A doctor is trained to give relief and is trained to do so safely and responsibly. Read more on Doctors Have Been Brainwashed By Pain Medicine Guidelines…
Filed under Addictions, medicine, News, prescription drugs, Research by on Jun 24th, 2016. Comment.
Read more on Prince’s Death, Unlike His Music, Was All Too Familiar…
Filed under Addictions, Celebrities, News, prescription drugs by on Jun 6th, 2016. Comment.
I idolized the American medical establishment. When I was a mere Blue Cross number-collecting lackey working at the front desk of the Emergency Room of Massachusetts General Hospital, I sometimes saw, slipping into the doctors’ lounge, notable people — doctors whose surname in footnotes graced the basic core medical textbooks I was using as parallel reading in France, to prepare myself for my American examinations in medicine. I never wanted to penetrate more than the lowest echelons of the American medical establishment when I returned from France. I mean I doubted the Harvard-types would open their world to me easily, no matter how clever I was. I proved to be right. At a Harvard-associated residency program, I was actually asked at the interview if anyone in my family was a Harvard University trained physician. I still remember the program chairman’s barely muffled laughter when I told him my father held a graduate degree from the Harvard University School of music. Read more on Drug Misuse in American Medicine Leads to Possible Catastrophe…
Filed under Doctors, medicine, News, prescription drugs by on May 23rd, 2016. Comment.
Filed under Addictions, News, prescription drugs, Substance Abuse by on Apr 23rd, 2016. Comment.
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…
Filed under Family, News, Research by on Apr 13th, 2016. Comment.
Every honest and complete psychiatric evaluation includes screening for delusions. A delusion is a strongly held belief that is totally without basis in the factual reality that we all use to live our daily lives. I have taken care of several people, institutionalized and not, who have had such beliefs. Medications known as “antipsychotics” can be very effective on the hallucinations — the hearing voices and seeing things and such — that are the hallmark of a lack of mental “normalcy” as is generally expected and accepted in the community. The same medications may be less effective on these delusions, these beliefs. Sometimes, in a particular kind of delusion, a kind that hits folks somewhere between 18 and 90 (average age 40) where there are no hallucinations, just beliefs. They are less frequent. They are also hard to treat, with antipsychotic medicines working maybe about half the time — in those who can actually be convinced to take them. Read more on Screening For Delusions…
Filed under Diagnosis, Mental Illness, News by on Apr 7th, 2016. Comment.
Why people are obsessed with the Kardashians? I have not followed them in the slightest. I am obsessed about knowledge — how to apply it to helping humans (my favorite species) have happier lives through scientific knowledge. I was very surprised when I heard two professionals — a man and a woman whose knowledge I respect — gushing about how much they loved the Kardashians. I wanted to know why. I admitted to them that I was, perhaps, just a little bit, well, jealous. My patients mostly seem to like me well enough, and some even say the love me. But I did not understand how or why people could “gush” about loving the Kardashians. My friends came to the rescue. They told me, step by step, the things that the Kardashians had done to make them so “lovable.” They thought I could replicate the process. Of course, me being me, I tried to find all that I could in the neuroscience and (more) the psychological literature, to figure out what worked, and why — and what they may have forgotten to tell me. Read more on Cashing In On The Kardashians…
Filed under Family, News, Society by on Feb 24th, 2016. Comment.