I'm a retired consult-liaison psychiatrist. I navigated the path in a phased retirement program through the hospital where I was employed. I was fully retired as of June 30, 2020. This blog chronicles my journey.
The 2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration of Human Rights Week gets kicked off on January 12, 2022 with Chair of Emergency Medicine Jenice Baker, MD, from Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia giving a lecture via Zoom, “Racial Perspectives on the Institution of Medicine.”
And on Wednesday January 19, 2022, Dr. Feranmi Okanlami, MD, MS, director of student accessibility and accommodation services at the University of Michigan, will deliver the Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Lecture: “Disabusing Disabilities.” You can register on line for this lecture and see the following link for a full list of events which will be updated.
I just found out today that my blog’s theme was retired. I don’t know when WordPress retired it, but it gives me a familiar feeling about retirement. Sena gets the credit for giving me the idea of changing the theme (which is how my blog looks on the web) because of the new year. As I looked over the themes, I saw a tiny notice beside the name of my own. “Your blog theme has been retired. Consider getting a new one, you geezer!”
The notice didn’t really say that, of course, but that’s how I felt. I’ve been blogging since 2011. I’ve never had a theme that was retired. I realized that if I changed my theme now, I couldn’t go back to the old, familiar creaky, cob-webbed, old-fashioned theme I’ve had now with my second blog. This one has the theme (using the word in a different sense) of—retirement. In fact, come to think of it, the word “old-fashioned” was used in the WordPress article explaining why some themes get retired.
So, I started looking at the themes seriously today. Most of them had the word “minimalist” attached to them. Frequently, I read how great they were for my “business.”
Hey, I’m retired. I’m not in any kind of business. There seems to be a lack of emphasis on a theme for hobby bloggers, some of whom are retired geezers.
Anyway, I dropped my old-fashioned theme and put on a new one. While I was at it, I got rid of a lot of old widgets. WordPress calls them “Legacy Widgets.” I couldn’t find a clear explanation for why they call them that. I did find a definition on the web. Essentially, in this context, I think it denotes software that has been superseded but is difficult to replace because of its wide use. What’s wrong with sliders? I don’t mean little sandwiches. I mean the featured images with post titles that slide across the theme page, showing off my best posts—or at least what I think my best posts were. Really, no themes with sliders? That’s what minimalism leads to, I guess.
I’m a legacy consulting psychiatrist, meaning I’m retired—something else to feel ambivalent about. Anyway, I kind of like the new theme.
There’s this line by Agent J in Men in Black 3 that goes: “Okay, see, the prerequisite for a joke, is that it be funny.” That’s what the “you really had to be there” expression is about and which occurs to me whenever I think about an incident that cracks me up now almost as much as it did decades ago.
The thing about the “you really had to be there” expression is that it refers to an event that was funny to someone, but the comicality of it is usually tough to explain to a person who wasn’t there at the time the event occurred. It’s one of those insider jokes. The often-present feature of the story is that there are some parts of it you’d rather not reveal. That can make it hard for some people to “get it.”
This “you really had to be there” story happened when I was a teenager. A bunch of us guys were sitting around a table after finishing lunch. We were having dessert, which were crumbly snack bars. I think they were made of chocolate Rice Krispies and they were probably old. That’s a key factor, along with the paper plates on which they were served.
Some of the guys were jonesing for a cigarette. Not me because I didn’t smoke. But the place didn’t allow smoking. One guy (I can’t remember his name so I’ll call him Ralph) started complaining about it and then starting playing with his snack bar like it was a cigarette. I know Rice Krispies bars are usually gooey, but these were definitely not. They were dry and tasteless. When you picked them up, crumbs randomly dropped all over the paper plates.
Anyway, while Ralph was moaning and groaning about not being able to smoke, he started tapping on his dessert bar like he was tapping ashes off a cigarette. Now, if you’ve ever smoked or watched somebody else smoke, it eventually dawns on you why some people say they smoke—it gives them something to do with their hands. Anyway, people used to say that. They do all sorts of weird mannerisms and trick-like finger moves while they smoke.
Anyway, Ralph would roll his cigarette/snack bar on the paper plate, tap crumbs off it like they were ashes, flick it smartly and, occasionally, he’d put it up to his lips and take a bite as though he were taking a drag.
Cigarette ash doesn’t make a sound when it falls in an ashtray. It’s impossible to explain why the tapping noise of the snack bar crumbs hitting the paper plate made us all hysterical. But it definitely had a lot to do with his clowning around with a snack bar prop. Ralph’s act was a combination of complaints about the food, the smoke-free joint, and an instinct for the prerequisite of a joke. It was funny—at a particular time and in a particular place.
I’ve thought about trying to make a YouTube video of this. But I don’t think it would be as funny as Ralph’s spontaneous performance. There’s probably no way I could pull it off. And, let’s face it, as a trained doctor knowing what I know about the health hazards of smoking, it’d be pretty awkward.
And would anyone else get it? You really had to be there.
It’s been a quiet day around here. It’s New Year’s Eve. I got a great message from a former resident who has started his own Psychiatry Consultation Fellowship training program in Bangkok, Thailand. Dr. Paul Thisayakorn and his wife are welcoming 2022 with their 2 lovely children and hoping 2022 will be a better year, as we are. The Covid pandemic has been hard around the world.
Paul also looks forward to establishing a C-L Psychiatry academic society in Thailand in the coming year. Paul did his psychiatry residency at University of Iowa and his C-L Psychiatry fellowship in Cleveland. Sena and I wish him and his family all the best in the new year.
Today was quiet, but tomorrow the big snowstorm will come. We’ll be digging out all day because the forecast is for 5-8 inches, high wind gusts, and ice. It’s Iowa, after all.
But for tonight we’ll take a cup of kindness and say goodbye to 2021.
And if you like MacLean’s version of Auld Lang Syne above, you might have a listen to another with the Scottish lyrics translated.
This is just a short message wishing a safe and happy holiday to all. I’m passing readers a couple of links to update information on the Covid-19 Omicron variant and how to stay as safe as possible this winter.
First is the Rounding@Iowa link to the Omicron Variant update. It’s an interview with University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (UIHC) infectious disease expert, Dr. Patricia Winokur, MD. It’s about a 16 minute interview. Highlights are that it’s important to get the booster for solid protection against variants including Omicron and that the Covid-19 vaccine is, in general, likely to turn out to be a 3-shot vaccine similar to others, such as the Hepatitis and Shingles vaccines.
The other link is to UIHC infectious disease specialist Dr. Daniel Diekema, MD and his thoughts about the Omicron variant. They echo those of Dr. Winokur and the emphasis again is on the importance of getting vaccinated.
Lastly, there is some guidance by UIHC in a graphic below on how to stay safe from getting infected with Covid-19, (whatever the variant) during winter activities. Happy Holidays!
Today is Iowa’s 175th birthday. It’s also the first day of snow this winter. I had to get out there and shovel. I can celebrate Iowa’s 175th year of statehood by rubbing liniment on my sore shoulders. The Iowa statehood anniversary will be a year-long commemoration. If it snows anymore, I’ll be bathing in muscle cream for at least that long and will likely miss many of the events.
It was a wet, heavy snow. I pushed it around for hours. While sweeping snow from the front porch, I slipped off the first step and came down hard (but on my feet!) on the sidewalk instead of the second step. I was unhurt, but it was jarring. It reminded me of one of last year’s big snows which left enough ice on the driveway to make me slip and fall on my butt. The next-door neighbor, who was also out shoveling, saw it and looked at me a long time—but I bounced right back up. No need to call an ambulance. I’m good!
And then the city snow plows came through and did what they did last year. They left snow droppings in our driveway, which wasn’t really plugged but looked unsightly.
The only excuse I have for not going back out to clean it up is that it was raining steadily, and my winter coat and gloves were still soggy from sweat. It’s not like it was a couple of years ago, when we lived another part of town and the plows banked in drifts the size of small cars across our driveway. However, I have modified my shoveling technique. I no longer twist my back and throw snow over my shoulder (the John Henry model). I bend my knees and keep my back straight.
There will be more snow tomorrow, later in the day. Maybe it will be late enough that it will be too dark to shovel. Or maybe all the shovels in our garage will meet with some sudden, mysterious accidental breakage that makes them useless. The roads will probably be too icy and impassable from snow drifts for driving to the hardware store to buy replacements.
That’s how things go in the winter around the Midwest, especially in places like Iowa, ravaged by 175 years of snowstorms, freezing temperatures, shovels, and oceans of liniment.
On Christmas eve, when it looked like there would be no snow for Christmas Day, I remembered my blog on WordPress had a setting that would make snow fall and blow across our websites. It looks like that stopped about 6 or 7 years ago to allow a sharper focus on the business aspect. A lot of bloggers were unhappy about the change. You had to pay to play to get the Holiday Snow, which means you had to purchase the Business Plan blog and a special plugin, which could then be exploited by hackers.
Today, I got all the snow I would ever need. Happy Birthday, Iowa!
ADDENDUM 12/29/2021:
Today I used an ice chopper to clear the snow blobs from my driveway, which had been frozen into ice blobs overnight. I also chopped the ice from the curb ramp on my sidewalk which the city snow plow had also plugged yesterday. An official city truck was driving by and witnessed me clearing it. Will it make a difference? It started snowing again this evening.
A couple of days ago, I got my retirement gift from The University of Iowa. It’s a about a year and a half late because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s welcome nonetheless. Normally there is an Annual Faculty Retirement Dinner, but it had to be cancelled. It’s a stunningly beautiful engraved crystal bowl with the University logo on it. It came with a wonderful letter of appreciation. It reminded me of my blog post in 2019, “My Definitive Journey.”
It’s a definitive symbol of the next part of my journey in life. For years I’d been a fireman of sorts, which is what a general hospital psychiatric consultant really is. The other symbols have been the fireman’s helmet and the little chair I carried around so that I could sit with my patients. I have changed a little.
I still have my work email access, which I’m ambivalent about, naturally. I check it every day, partly because of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), but also to delete the junk mail. I still get a lot of it. I get a rare message from former trainees, one of whom said it “pained” her to learn I’m now Professor Emeritus.
I have not seriously considered returning to work. That doesn’t mean I have not been occasionally nostalgic for some aspects of my former life.
The poem, “El Viaje Definitivo” by Juan Ramon Jimenez evokes mixed feelings and thoughts now. I have gone away. But in looking back at the past, I now see now that the birds didn’t always sing. The tree was not always green.
I don’t miss my former home, the hospital, as keenly now, which is now a much harder place to work since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
And there is little that is definitive about my journey forward from where I now stand. I’m a little less afraid than I was over a year and a half ago. And the birds sing where I am now, sometimes more clearly than before.
El Viaje Definitivo (The Final Journey)
… and I will go away.
And the birds will stay, singing
And my garden will stay
With its green tree
And white water well.
And every afternoon the sky will be blue and peaceful
And the pealing of bells will be like this afternoon’s
Peal of the bell of the high campanile.
They will die, all those who loved me
And every year the town will be revived, again
And in my circle of green white-limed flowering garden
Christmas will be here Saturday and there’s no snow. At least we won’t have to shovel. I want to say a big thank you to my wife, Sena. She has put up with me for 44 Christmases. That’s asking a lot.
Here’s hoping for a better New Year in 2022. Happy holidays!
Sena and I just went through a marathon of tries over a couple of days to make a YouTube video of a demo of how to play Chicago Cribbage (a variation of cribbage) and finally made it. We think it might be the first YouTube video of how to play Chicago Cribbage. You have to know basic cribbage to follow the gameplay, although you can still appreciate our antics whether you know the standard game or not. You can learn basic cribbage from my post “Kitchen Table Cribbage,” and the rules for Chicago Cribbage are posted on the web.
You need to know basic cribbage to play the Chicago Cribbage variation
No doubt you’ll find mistakes, but they’re nothing compared to the bloopers we made earlier. We forgot basic cribbage skills! And it was the best time we had playing cribbage in a while.
One thing we noticed was that it was a lot easier to play standard cribbage after trying to keep track of all the nuances of Chicago Cribbage. It takes longer to play but you don’t notice the time pass. We actually skipped one video segment to get the length of show down to about 15 minutes.
I get a big kick out of watching TV shows about the paranormal, and I’ve seen something weird happening in the past few weeks. I watch a couple of programs fairly regularly: The Proof is Out There hosted by Tony Harris, and Paranormal Caught on Camera.
They both have roughly similar formats. They solicit videos of the weird from viewers and provide commentary from a panel of experts. Usually the Proof Panel has physicists, anthropologists, video processing pros and other scientists assessing the evidence. The Paranormal Panel is usually made up of those with such titles as Paranormal Investigator, Paranormal Researcher, Folklorist, Dowsing Rod Salesman, and Bigfoot Personal Trainer.
I’ve seen the same 3 videos evaluated on both shows. That was puzzling. Do the people submitting the videos lose all rights to their videos? Anyway, all 3 were validated by the Paranormal Panel, and all 3 were debunked by the Proof Panel.
The first video is of an alleged Yeti running across a snow-covered road in Russia. The Paranormal Panel members all seemed in favor of calling the creature an unknown cryptid, probably a Yeti. However, the Proof Panel members thought it was a hoax, even saying that the observers who made the video started yelling “Moose, Moose, Moose!” seconds before the creature was even visible. One Proof Panel member went so far as to suggest the video makers were in cahoots with a guy in a monkey suit. She also pointed out that the “creature” tripped over the edge of the road, something a real Yeti probably wouldn’t do. The Paranormal Panel validated the video. The Proof Panel debunked it.
The 2nd video was of some animal streaking across the yard of the person who caught the image on a home security camera. It was incredibly blurred and appeared to be dragging something. It was the middle of the night. The Paranormal Panel basically agreed with the person who shot the video, saying that it was probably some kind of dinosaur. The Proof Panel said there was a lot of smearing artifact in the video and that it was probably a dog running across the lawn, dragging its leash behind it. Once again, the Paranormal Panel validated it and the Proof Panel debunked it.
The 3rd video was a shot of something big, possibly an aquatic animal, making a big wave somewhere off the Florida coast and racing toward the boat of the people who shot the video. There wasn’t a lot to see, just a large black shape. The Paranormal Panel validated it as possibly a prehistoric sea monster. The Proof Panel debunked it, saying it was a large snake wrapped around its equally huge prey, attempting to both throttle and eat it, even though the “snake” was not visible.
So, what’s going on here? I like watching these shows because I like mysteries and the unexplained. There a lot of shows like this nowadays. I tend to think of The Proof is Out There with Tony Harris as being the more scientifically based program, but even Tony got fooled by the video shot by somebody speculating it was evidence that reality is a simulation, when in fact it was a cool smartphone camera trick which people have been fooling around with for years.
I think both shows are fun to watch and they’re best thought of as entertainment. What do you think?
Go Retire Psychiatrist 