April 2022 – Page 3 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

The Chicken Finally Lays An Egg

Below is an old post from a previous blog that I published on June 6, 2010. Although the title in my record is simply PM Handbook Blog, there must have been another title. Maybe it should have been more like The Chicken Has Finally Laid an Egg (you’ll get the joke later).

There are two reasons for posting it today. One is to illustrate how the Windows voice recognition dictation app works. It’s a little better than I thought it would be. The last time I used it, it was ugly. I’m using it now because I thought it might be a little easier than trying to type it since I still have problems with vision in my right eye because of the recent retinal tear injury repair. So, instead of doing copy paste, what you’re seeing is a dictation—for the most part.

On the other hand, I’m still having to proofread what I dictate. And I still find a few mistakes, though much fewer than I expected.

The other reason for this post is to help me reflect on how far the fellowship has come since that time. It did eventually attract the first fellow under a different leader. That was shortly after I retired. It was a great step forward for the department of psychiatry:

“Here is one definition of a classic:

“Classic: A book which people praise but don’t read.” Mark Twain.

When I announced the publishing of our book, Psychosomatic Medicine, An Introduction to Consultation Liaison Psychiatry, someone said that it’s good to finally get a book into print and out of one’s head. The book in earlier years found other ways out of my head, mainly in stapled, paperclipped, spiral bound, dog eared, pages of homemade manuals, for use on our consultation service.

It’s a handbook and meant to be read, of course, but quickly and on the run. As I’ve said in a previous blog, it makes no pretension to being the Tour de Force textbook in America that inspired it. However, any textbook can evolve into an example of Twain’s definition of a classic. The handbook writer is a faithful and humble steward who can keep the spirit of the classic lively.

We must have a textbook as a marker of Psychosomatic Medicine’s place in medicine as a subspecialty. It’s like a Bible, meant to be read reverently, venerated, and quoted by scholars. But the ark of this covenant tends to be a dusty bookshelf that bows under the tome’s weight. A handbook is like the Sunday School lesson plan for spreading the scholar’s wisdom in the big book.

Over the long haul, the goal of any books should mean something other than royalties or an iconic place in history. No preacher ever read a sermon to our congregation straight out of the Bible. It was long ago observed by George Henry that there will never be enough psychiatric consultants. This prompts the question of who will come after me to do this work. My former legacy was to be the Director of a Psychosomatic Medicine Fellowship in an academic department in the not-so-distant past. Ironically, though there will never be enough psychiatric consultants, there were evidently too many fellowships from which to choose. I had to let the fellowship go. My legacy then became this book, not just for Psychosomatic Medicine fellows, but medical students, residents, and maybe even for those who see most of the patients suffering from mental illness—dedicated primary care physicians.

My wife gave me a birthday card once which read: “Getting older: May each year be a feather on the glorious Chicken of Life as it Soars UNTAMED and BEAUTIFUL towards the golden sun.” My gifts included among the obligatory neckties, a couple of books on preparing for retirement.

Before I retire, I would like to do all I can to ensure that the next generation of doctors learn to respect the importance of care for both body and mind of each and every one of their patients. That’s the goal of our book. And may the glorious chicken of life lay a golden egg within its pages to protect it from becoming a classic.”

Chicken picture credit: Pixydotorg.

The Connection Between The University of Iowa and Factitious Disorder

I found another old blog post, Thoughts on Munchausen’s Syndrome, which reminded me of a psychiatric disorder I saw probably more frequently than most psychiatrists unless they are consultation-liaison specialists. I wrote it in June of 2011. I still don’t understand the disorder and I doubt anyone else does either. The interesting connection to Iowa is that a patient with Factitious Disorder was admitted to the University of Iowa Hospital in the 1950s. The treating doctor published a paper about him in the Journal of the American Medical Association.:

“I ran across an old poem written by William Bennett Bean, M.D., who was a physician in the Department of Medicine at the University of Iowa. It’s called “The Munchausen Syndrome” and it was published in 1959 [1]. Dr. Bean was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Iowa in 1948. Of course, he did more than write interesting poetry. He specialized in nutrition. He was named the Sir William Osler Professor of Medicine at Iowa in 1970. He was well-known as a clinician and teacher. He was also called a “masterful teller of tales”, which may explain in part why he wrote “The Munchausen Syndrome.” One quotation is “The one mark of maturity, especially in a physician, and perhaps it is even rarer in a scientist, is the capacity to deal with uncertainty.”

The poem is about a psychiatric disorder about which there is a great deal of uncertainty, formerly called Munchausen’s Syndrome, now known as Factitious Disorder. It’s based on an actual case of the disorder, an account of which was published in the medical literature [3]. An excerpt from the beginning of the work follows:

THE MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME

By WILLIAM B. BEAN, M.D.

IOWA CITY, IOWA

The patient who shops around from doctor to doctor, the dowager alert for some new handsome young physician to hear her flatulent and oleaginous outpourings, the bewildered neurotic who has had a dozen operations for a thousand misunderstood complaints—these we recognize as interesting patients or as nuisances we have to deal with as charitably as we may. They occupy the lower end of the spectrum of humanity with all its infinitely various people. Nearby reside the malingerer and the deadbeat, a shoplifter of medical aid who escapes just ahead of the policeman. At the frayed end of this spectrum we find a fascinating derelict, human flotsam detached from his moorings, the peripatetic medical vagrant, the itinerant fabricator of a nearly perfect facsimile of serious illness—the victim of Munchausen’s syndrome. This is the tale of such a patient. He had our medical department in an uproar off and on for forty days and forty nights. His Odyssey I outline here in verse. I find to my anguish that much of the verse does not scan, some does not rhyme, and all is obscure. I proceed.

THE MUNCHAUSEN SAGA

In the summer of Nineteen and Fifty-four At Iowa City, our hospital door,—

Mecca for hundreds every day—

A merchant seaman came our way—A part time wrestler, in denim jacket

Crashed through the door with a horrible racket,

Two hundred sixty pounds at least,

He was covered with blood like a wounded beast.

Try to excuse the tone of the piece; it was written in another era when a more intolerant attitude toward illness mimicry was viewed as malicious undermining of the physician-patient relationship. In fact, it’s virtually impossible to distinguish Factitious Disorder from Malingering. We think of the former as belonging in the category of mental illness and the latter as, well, not an illness at all, but lying in order to get something or to get out of something. Factitious Disorder is marked by lying as well and some try to make the case that the lying which patients with Factitious Disorder engage in, sometimes called “pseudologia fantastica” or pathologic lying, is somehow different from ordinary lying. According to Bean, it’s like this:

He gave us a history, in elegant diction, Which later we found was all out fiction. Carpenter, wrestler and bosun’s mate And stevedore. He could exaggerate! His body was covered with many a scar He said from surgeons near and far

His appendix went in County Cork A navel hernia in New York.

Once, he declared, in Portland, Maine,

A surgeon stripped out his saphenous vein. Surgical scars above one kidney

Came from an ectomy done in Sidney. Scarred, he was, on his abdomen

From a wreck, he said, when with women roamin.’ Another injury he wouldn’t reveal us

Messed up his left internal malleolus. From time to time, as he wove this story

He boasted of prowess and wealth and glory. By courage he ruled his fellow sailors

But he didn’t say much of his many jailors.

In fact, we understand very little about so-called pathologic lying, though the telling of tales is engaged in not just by psychiatric patients. One of the most fascinating consequences of the frustration physicians feel about Factitious Disorder was the fraudulent case report about Factitious Munchausen’s Syndrome. The paper was published by a couple of resident physicians in the New England Journal of Medicine and was a spurious account of an emergency room patient named Norman U. Senchbau, who claimed to actually have Munchausen’s Syndrome and who demanded admission to hospital for treatment [2]. He supposedly confessed to having undergone many surgeries and to prove it, displayed many scars on his abdomen…which washed off with soap and water. Of course, the name of the patient is just an anagram of Baron Munchausen.

I occasionally get calls from internists and surgeons about patients whom they suspect of manufacturing illness for the sake of taking the role of patient (part of the definition of the disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). As often as not, I have no clear idea of how to proceed with interviewing someone who probably does deliberately produce illness, other than to do my best to listen for understanding, to avoid confronting them, and to seek some way to interrupt their self-destructive behavior. In the end I don’t believe we now know much more than Bean did:

What do we know of the pathogenesis

Of hospital vagrants and doctors menaces? Maybe the person acts unenlightened

From a real disease which has him frightened. Does part of the reason he may vex you all Lurk in dark leanings homosexual?

What is the cause, and what are the reasons He wandered pitifully through the seasons? Lonely pilgrim out of orbit

Peace and quiet lost in forfeit.

Hospital haunters, doctor deceivers

Their acting confounds even nonbelievers. Derelicts lost in a cold society

Wanderlusting, without satiety.

Social pariah or medical freak

Whence does he come and what does he seek?

I cannot relieve my brain’s congestion By unveiling an answer to this question In the age of sputniks, the fall of parity We all should try to think with clarity.

L’Envoi

Princes and wise men of many conditions

Beautiful ladies and honored physicians

I’m sorry I cannot fasten my claws in

What causes the Syndrome named Munchausen, This off again, on again, gone again Finnegan

Comes in, than goes out and at length comes in again. Munchausen’s victims must be expected

To plague our lives unless detected.

Those we identify when we sight ’em

Should be restricted ad infinitum

So be alert for this great nonesuchman Munchausen syndrome’s flying Dutchman.

1. Bean, W.B., The Munchausen syndrome. Perspectives in biology and medicine, 1959. 2(3): p. 347-53.

2. Gurwith, M. and C. Langston, Factitious Munchausen’s syndrome. The New England journal of medicine, 1980. 302(26): p. 1483-4.

3. Chapman, J.S., Peregrinating problem patients; Munchausen’s syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association, 1957. 165(8): p. 927-33.”

Quiz Show on Delirium

Here’s an old post from February 15, 2011 from my previous blog The Practical Psychosomaticist called Quiz Show Versus Grand Rounds for Delirium Education:

“So you want to put on a game show contest to educate clinicians about delirium? Contact David Meagher, a psychiatrist in (where else?) Limerick, Ireland. He reported on this innovative educational workshop in the November 2010 Vol. 3 issue of the Annals of Delirium, the newsletter for the European Delirium Association (EDA). He also published the study which describes the contest in International Psychogeriatrics[1].

The workshop focused on clinician attitudes toward drug therapy for distressed delirious patients. It explored pre-existing attitudes and practice toward the use of medications to manage delirium and exposed participants to a very interactive educational event modeled after a popular TV quiz show. There were two teams (skeptics versus neuroleptics) furnished with a list of statements about delirium pharmacotherapy. The participants later completed a post-workshop questionnaire that explored changes in attitudes as a result of the workshop.

The participants were all experts on the subject and there was a good deal of variability in attitudes and practice. Some of the questions put to the teams involved using antipsychotics prophylactically to prevent delirium, the mechanism of action of antipsychotics, and what role benzodiazepines play in the treatment of non-alcohol withdrawal delirium.

One of the more puzzling findings was that the frequency of antipsychotic use was inversely proportional to the perception of the strength of supporting evidence. In other words, the less they knew about antipsychotics, the more often they used them. Most participants seemed to believe that the principal mechanism of action of antipsychotics is sedation, despite the lack of supporting evidence.

Some clinicians used antipsychotics to relieve the stress of caregivers rather than that of delirious patients, an example of patients getting the right treatment for the wrong reasons as observed by Meagher—and many of us in the field.

The workshop also highlighted the tendency of clinicians to focus on risk management rather than effective therapeutic intervention in the management of delirious patients with disruptive behavior and severe distress. This mainly relates to focus on the potential adverse effects of antipsychotics such as extrapyramidal side effects, metabolic, and cerebrovascular effects.

The quiz show activity was fun and challenging. The device of dividing the participants into two small teams with larger audience participation cut down on the anxiety that could be provoked by giving the “wrong answer”. The questions were true/false and didn’t always have clear right or wrong answers. It was highly interactive, a component of continuing medical educational (CME) activities that is increasingly encouraged because it’s more likely to lead to changes in clinician attitude and practice. The one-time Grand Rounds CME “seat time” is going the way of the dinosaur.

So a couple of findings from the quiz show post-activity questionnaire were that clinicians were more likely to use antipsychotics prophylactically and to use antipsychotics to manage hypoactive delirium.

Our delirium intervention project group members are not quite as enthusiastic yet about these two interventions. We’re a bit more inclined at least initially to focus on non-pharmacologic multicomponent strategies such as the example below:

Minimize the use of immobilizing catheters, intravenous lines, and physical restraints
Avoid immobility, early mobilization
Monitor nutrition
Provide visual and hearing aids
Monitor closely for dehydration
Control pain
Monitor fluid-electrolyte balance
Monitor bowel and bladder functioning
Review medications
Reorient communications with the patient
Place an orientation board, clock, or familiar objects (ie, family photographs) in patient rooms
Encourage cognitively stimulating activities such as word puzzles
Facilitate sleep hygiene measures, including relaxation music or tapes at bedtime, warm drinks, and gentle massage
Minimize noise and interventions at bedtime, e.g., by rescheduling medication times

But I’m just as enthusiastic about interactive educational methods to engage learners in order to build a culture more likely to produce champions who will lead the delirium prevention effort—try the delirium multicomponent criss-cross puzzle below. The clues are contained in the list of multicomponent tactics above.”

Meagher, D.J., Impact of an educational workshop upon attitudes towards pharmacotherapy for delirium. Int Psychogeriatr, 2010. 22(6): p. 938-46.

My Opinion So Far of the 2nd Covid-19 Booster

My title for this post indicates my opinion of the Covid-19 vaccine 2^nd booster. I missed nearly all of the FDA Advisory Committee meeting last Wednesday but got the last hour of the discussion of the questions:

“Following the scheduled presentations and open public hearing, the VRBPAC will be asked to discuss and provide input on the following topics (no voting questions):

• What considerations should inform strain composition decisions to ensure that available COVID-19 vaccines continue to meet public health needs, e.g.:
-Role of VRBPAC and FDA in coordinating strain composition decisions
-Timelines needed to implement strain composition updates
-Harmonization of strain composition across available vaccines

• How often should the adequacy of strain composition for available vaccines be assessed?

• What conditions would indicate a need for updated COVID-19 vaccine strain composition, and what data would be needed to support a decision on a strain composition update?

• What considerations should guide the timing and populations for use of additional COVID-19 vaccine booster doses?”

I think the Stat News summary is helpful. There is a link to the recorded meeting. Sorry, it was over 8 hours long and I don’t think I can sit through that much technical difficulty—which was reportedly more of a problem than usual.

I’m a little disappointed that the duration of the protection from the 2^nd booster might be only about 8 weeks, according to the Israeli presentation. Then what? FDA Director Peter Marks frankly calls the 2^nd booster a “stopgap” measure. We need a new vaccine, not a series of boosters of the same old, same old.

Can the drug companies coordinate their efforts to come up with a new vaccine that will target the most prevalent variants of concern? Frankly, I doubt it, especially if they have to get going on the production in June and there doesn’t seem to be consensus on what variants would be important by the time the new vaccine would be needed, which is this fall. The virus mutates quickly and not in predictable ways.

I think we’re well past the idea of getting a vaccine that will lead to a sterilizing immunity, especially since it sounds like a product that stimulates nasal mucosa IgA antibodies would be necessary—if you can keep from sneezing the product back out on your sleeve. If the vaccines keep me out of the hospital, I guess I’d be happy with that. It looks like immunity will wane no matter what you do and there doesn’t seem to be a correlate of protection nor any guarantees on durability.

Counting hospitalizations for Covid as a way of tracking infections might be misleading since many hospitals are now not counting them if they’re not the primary reason for admission.

While I think getting the 2^nd booster is fine as a stopgap measure for now, and I’ll likely get it, I’m hoping for a new vaccine in the coming months.

University of Iowa Ophthalmology Always a Top Contender

Well, I suppose I should tell you why you’re seeing these oldie blog posts from a different era in my career. It’s because I didn’t know whether I’d even be able to see well enough to write after my retinal detachment surgery, which was this past Friday. So, I scheduled a few posts from the past just in case.

The University of Iowa Ophthalmology Department is always highly ranked in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. It was seventh in 2021-2022.

I found out 3 weeks ago that I’ve been walking around with a detached right retina for years probably. One of the biggest risks for developing the condition is being over 50 years old. Hey, do you want to look like me by the time your fifty—ish?

You know, what Sena and I think of whenever we hear about retinal detachment is Sugar Ray Leonard and his retinal tear in 1982 when he was at the top of his career. He almost didn’t have the surgery right away until a doctor told him might go blind if he chose to put it off. I think we pretty much stopped watching boxing because of how dangerous it is.

Don’t slap me on the head, I just had retinal detachment surgery!

Leonard’s description of his retinal detachment is classic: “The only thing I felt, I’d get hit in the eye and it swells, then all of a sudden it felt like a shade. It felt like a little shade opens in your eye — you don’t completely see the full picture. It looked like my eye was swollen, well… it felt like my eye was swollen because my vision at that time was getting worse because that curtain was coming down….

“I didn’t even know what (the doctor) was talking about. He said, ‘You have a detached retina.’ I said, ‘OK’. We thought we could come after the fight. Seriously,” said Leonard, who was told by the world renown surgeon Ronald G. Michels that holding off this surgery for another week could lead to blindness.”

He had the surgery right away.

I had a crack team of surgeons and the nursing and other staff were the best. I’m not going to bore you with a blow-by-blow account of the procedure. It did involve sharp objects. I got by with minimal sedation and pain control was good. They did a procedure called a scleral buckle (which is made of silicone) in which they tie this belt around the eye, cinch it tight until it pops like a grape, and then charge you $10 million. I think it’s covered by insurance, but check with your carrier just to make sure.

One thing that does tend to happen when I get sedation is an uptick in my baseline absent-mindedness. Shortly after we got home after the procedure, I couldn’t find my house keys or my car keys (don’t worry, I wasn’t driving). I even called the hospital to check if I’d left them there. Later, I happened to open the cupboard where I usually place them—and there they were. I had put them away and immediately forgot that I did it.

I’m now counting on Sena to give me the mandatory eye drops, 17 drops per hour from 6 nine-quart bottles until death. Don’t bother to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom in any regular way—you’ll be too busy administering eye drops. Are we clear on that?

The swelling is already going down. I can carry around my eye in a bushel basket now instead of a wagon. Sena can barely look at it without cringing. But if I were to try to give myself the drops, they’d be dribbling down my shirt.

If you don’t get your eyes examined after you see what looks like a curtain coming down over your eye or see flashes of light—you should get your head examined. Psychiatrists will likely charge you only $10 million.

Picture credit Wikimedia: Not copyrighted material.

Going Down Blogging Memory Lane

I’ve been going down the blogging memory lane lately and thought I’d repost what was probably the very first post I published on my first blog, The Practical Psychosomaticist. The title was “Letter from a Pragmatic Idealist.”

While a lot of water has gone under the bridge since mid-December of 2010, some principles remain the same. Some problems still remain, such as the under-recognition of delirium.

Just a few thoughts about words, just because I’m a writer and words are interesting. The word “Psychosomaticist” is clunky and I’ve joked about it. I tried to think of another name for the blog. I thought “Pragmatic Idealist” was original until I googled it—someone already had coined it. Then I considered “The Practical Idealist”, with the same result. The same thing happened with “The Practical Psychiatrist.” All of the terms had been used and the associations didn’t fit me. I couldn’t find anyone or any group using the term “The Practical Psychosomaticist.”

Finally, after the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine (APM) changed its name to the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP) in 2016, I changed the name of the blog to The Practical C-L Psychiatrist, finally dropping the name “psychosomatic” along with its problematic associations.

I guess the chronicle would be incomplete without an explanation of what happened to that blog. Around 2016, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was adopted by the European Parliament. WordPress, a popular blogging platform which I use, eventually decided that even hobby bloggers had to come up with a quasi-legal policy document to post on their websites to ensure they were complying with the GDPR regulation and not misusing anyone’s personal data.

I didn’t think that applied to hobby bloggers like me yet it was required. I wasn’t collecting anyone’s personal data and not trying to sell anything. I deleted my blog in July of 2018. Because I loved to write, I eventually started a new blog around the last year of my phased retirement contract with my hospital in 2019.

Anyway, here’s the December 15, 2010 post, “Letter from a Pragmatic Idealist.”

“I read with interest an article from The Hospitalist, August 2008 discussing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requirement for hospitals to submit information on Medicare claims regarding whether a list of specific diagnoses were present on admission (POA)[1]. The topic of the article was whether or not delirium would eventually make the list of diagnoses that CMS will pay hospitals as though that complication did not occur, i.e., not pay for the additional costs associated with managing these complications. At the time this article was published, CMS was seeking public comments on the degree to which the conditions would be reasonably preventable through application of evidence-based guidelines.

I have no idea whether delirium due to any general medical condition made the list or not. But I have a suggestion for a delirium subtype that probably should make the list, and that would be intoxication delirium associated with using beverage alcohol in an effort to treat presumed alcohol withdrawal. There is a disturbing tendency for physicians (primarily surgeons) at academic medical centers to try to manage alcohol withdrawal with beverage alcohol, despite the lack of medical literature evidence to support the practice [2, 3]. At times, in my opinion, the practice has led to intoxication delirium in certain patients who receive both benzodiazepines (a medication that has evidence-based support for treating alcohol withdrawal) combined with beer—which generally does not.

I’ve co-authored a couple of articles for our institution’s pharmacy newsletter and several of my colleagues and pharmacists petitioned the pharmacy subcommittee to remove beverage alcohol from the formulary at our institution, where beer and whiskey have been used by some of our surgeons to manage withdrawal. Although our understanding was that beverage alcohol had been removed last year, it is evidently still available through some sort of palliative care exception. This exception has been misused, as evidenced by cans of Old Style Beer with straws in them on bedside tables of patients who are already stuporous from opioid and benzodiazepine. A surgical co-management team was developed, in my opinion, in part to address the issue by providing expert consultation from surgeons to surgeons about how to apply evidence-based practices to alcohol withdrawal treatment. This has also been a failure.

I think it’s ironic that some professionals feared being sanctioned by CMS for using Haloperidol to manage suffering and dangerous behavior by delirious people as reported by Stoddard in the winter 2009 article in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Bulletin[4]. Apparently, CMS in fact did have a problem with using PRN Haloperidol (not FDA approved of course, but commonly used for decades and recommended in American Psychiatric Association practice guidelines for management of delirium), calling it a chemical restraint while having no objection to PRN Lorazepam, which has been identified as an independent predictor of delirium in ICU patients[5]. Would the CMS approve of using beer to treat alcohol withdrawal, which can cause delirium?

As a clinician-educator and Psychosomatic Medicine “supraspecialist” (term coined by Dr. Theodore Stern, MD from Massachusetts General Hospital), I’ve long cherished the notion that we, as physicians, advance our profession and serve our patients best by trying to do the right thing as well as do the thing right. But I wonder if what some of my colleagues and trainees say may be true—that when educational efforts to improve the way we provide humanistic and preventive medical care for certain conditions don’t succeed, not paying physicians and hospitals for them will. I still hold out for a less cynical view of human nature. But if it will improve patient care, then add this letter to the CMS suggestion box, if there is one.”

1. Hospitalist, D. (2008) Delirium Dilemma. The Hospitalist.

2. Sarff, M. and J.A. Gold, Alcohol withdrawal syndromes in the intensive care unit. Crit Care Med, 2010. 38(9 Suppl): p. S494-501.

3. Rosenbaum, M. and T. McCarty, Alcohol prescription by surgeons in the prevention and treatment of delirium tremens: historic and current practice. General Hospital Psychiatry. 24(4): p. 257-259.

4. Stoddard, J., D.O. (2009) Treating Delirium with Haloperidol: Our Experience with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Bulletin.

5. Pandharipande, P., et al., Lorazepam is an independent risk factor for transitioning to delirium in intensive care unit patients. Anesthesiology, 2006. 104(1): p. 21-6.

My Old Elevator Pitches on Delirium

I thought it would be fun to take a look back at my chronicle as expressed in my old blog posts. As the featured image shows, I used to have a blog I called The Practical Psychosomaticist, which I started back in 2010. It was mostly about how to diagnose, manage, and prevent delirium. One of them was about developing elevator pitches promoting delirium awareness. My blog post Elevator Pitch for a Delirium Prevention Project is below:

“Sir Winston Churchill: Be clear, be brief, be seated.

I have been told that I could improve my chances of selling my product of delirium prevention to various stakeholders by developing a good elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a short summary used to quickly and simply define a product or service and sell it. The idea is that you should be able to deliver the pitch in the time it takes to ride an elevator or about thirty seconds to two minutes.

I’m a doctor, not a salesman. But I’ll give it a shot.

Pitch to a staff nurse: I’m Dr. JA and I teach nurses how to assess, treat, and prevent delirium in hospitalized patients. Delirium is an acute confusional episode that mimics mental illness but is actually a medical emergency. Delirium worsens concentration, can lead to hallucinations, withdrawal, changes in appetite, reduced mobility, and sleep disturbance. When nurses have the skills and tools to prevent delirium, they ultimately do less work yet provide safer and more effective care for their patients, thereby promoting healing. Delirium leads to increased death rates, longer lengths of hospital stay, and persisting cognitive impairment. Nurses work harder to take care of them because confusion makes patients less cooperative, emotionally volatile, harder to communicate with, and sometimes even violent. Nurses want and need to know how to prevent delirium and I can help them do that.

Pitch to a potential funding source: I’m Dr. JA and I teach doctors and nurses how to assess, treat, and prevent delirium, an acute confusional disorder caused by multiple medical problems that mimics mental illness but is actually a medical emergency. They may be slow to respond, withdrawn, have attitude changes, and have mood symptoms. Because the risk for delirium is higher in the elderly, physicians and nurses in hospitals actually have to work harder to treat delirious patients with serious medical disorders. That’s because the patients are too cognitively impaired to cooperate with treatment, too disorganized to consent for them, and too agitated and restless to sit still for necessary tests. Doctors and nurses want and need to learn how to use assessment skills and tools to prevent delirium. This vital educational resource allows them to provide the best health care for older patients.

Pitch to Patient and Carers: I’m Dr. JA and I help doctors and nurses care for patients who may be at high risk for or who are in fact suffering from delirium. Delirium is an abrupt change in your mental state that represents a distinct change from your usual self and is often alarming to you and your loved ones. You can be disoriented, restless, hallucinate, have delusions and personality changes, or be very sleepy and seem depressed. Delirium is often temporary but can cause longer hospital stays, or the need for long-term care and raises the risk for falls and bed sores. Those at risk are over age 65, already have memory problems or dementia, have a broken hip, or several serious medical illnesses. We’ll assess regularly for changes in your emotions, behavior, or thinking and if they occur, we’ll use a special test to spot delirium early. We’ll work to prevent delirium by providing high-quality medical care. Occasionally, distress and behavioral changes could make patients a risk to themselves and if non-medication methods don’t reduce these, then a short course of medication called Haldol may be used.”

Well, all of the elevator pitches are way too long. But the message is still important.

The Double Trouble Double Green Screen

I finally got the elevator pitch green screen YouTube trailer done right—I think. It took me 4 tries. The difficulty for me was getting the green screen video actually to open up in sync with the elevator doors. What you’re supposed to see are the elevator doors seemingly opening up to an interesting scene, which is a green screen production. See my April 1, 2022 post Quick and Dirty Green Screen post.

Recall the first one I did. I moved into the elevator and stayed there where I gave my elevator pitch. See my March 18, 2022 post, New Elevator Pitch. I’m sure a lot of people knew what was odd about that. I tried again a few times, each time not feeling right about the results.

I finally had a look at PowerDirector University Malik’s tutorial (the Land of Oz Effect mentioned in the description, along with a link) on it and realized what I had to do. I actually made two green screens. I made one the right way with me giving the elevator pitch and superimposed on an old video of Niagara Falls which Sena and I visited on a vacation.

Then, I made another green screen production using the free elevator clip green screen download and Niagara videos. What I kept doing wrong was placing the elevator introduction and the Niagara clips on the wrong tracks in the PowerDirector video editing software. When I reversed them (the downloaded free elevator clip below the clip of me giving the elevator pitch at Niagara Falls , it worked—with a little nudging of the Niagara clip.

Reminder: FDA Advisory Committee Meeting Today on Covid-19 Vaccine Boosters

Just a reminder; today the FDA Advisory Committee will meet from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, ET today to discuss Covid-19 vaccine boosters. I’ll be unable to post a “play by play” as I have in the past because I have something else on my schedule.

Especially noteworthy is the Briefing Document in the meeting materials, entitled:

“Considerations for COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Doses and Process for COVID-19 Vaccine Strain Selection to Address Current and Emerging Variants.”

Section 7 starts on page 17, “Topics for VRBPAC Discussion.” The important issue is determining strain composition of Covid-19 vaccines and what goes into consideration for the optimal use of additional booster doses.

April 6, 2022 Update:

“Topics for VRBPAC Discussion

Following the scheduled presentations and open public hearing, the VRBPAC will be asked to discuss and provide input on the following topics (no voting questions):

• How often should the adequacy of strain composition for available vaccines be assessed?

• What conditions would indicate a need for updated COVID-19 vaccine strain composition, and what data would be needed to support a decision on a strain composition update?

• What considerations should guide the timing and populations for use of additional COVID-19 vaccine booster doses?”

Quick Announcement on Covid-19 2nd Vaccine Booster

According to a University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics announcement on The Loop, 2nd booster doses were available to employees, volunteers, and patients starting April 4, 2022.