Category: current events

National Day of Racial Healing Today

I just found out about the National Day of Racial Healing, which is today. It follows the National MLK Day, which this year was yesterday. The annual National Day of Racial Healing was started in 2017. The website tells what the event is about:

“The National Day of Racial Healing is a time to contemplate our shared values and create the blueprint together for #HowWeHeal from the effects of racism. Launched on Jan. 17, 2017, it is an opportunity to bring ALL people together in their common humanity and inspire collective action to create a more just and equitable world.”

Read more about the origins of the National Day of Racial Healing here.

My Two Cents on The Embrace Sculpture Honoring MLK Jr and Coretta Scott King

I first saw a photo of the sculpture honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King, called “The Embrace” a couple of days ago. I remember my first impression being that it would have been nice to see a full sculpture of the couple rather than disembodied arms.

Sena mentioned it today because it was unveiled at Boston Commons. This was just before my mindfulness meditation, so I just told her that I saw the picture of it and said I would have to think about it some more.

As I sat in meditation, it occurred to me that “The Embrace” expressed what I think is a basic abstract idea, which is the challenge for us to embrace the notion that we’re all humans who ought to accept each other, and be kind and generous to one another.

That’s what I think the Kings did. That’s why Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize.

You could make a sculpture of the King as a couple embracing each other after he won the Nobel Prize. It would have been beautiful. On the other hand, you could make a sculpture which tries to do more than that. How difficult would it be to make a representation of what it might look like if all of us embraced our humanity—and each other?

It sounds too difficult. Yet the artist managed to do just that. Anyway, that’s my two cents.

MLK Week Redux for the New University of Iowa Psychiatry Fellows

I discovered the University of Iowa Dept of Psychiatry had a very successful match, filling key residency slots in Child Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine, and Consultation-Liaison fellowships. Congratulations! That’s a big reason to celebrate.

This reminds me of my role as a teacher. I retired from the department two and a half years ago. But I’ll always remember how hard the residents and fellows worked.

And that’s why I’m reposting my blog “Remembering My Calling.”:

Back when I had the blog The Practical C-L Psychiatrist, I wrote a post about the Martin Luther King Jr. Day observation in 2015. It was published in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on January 19, 2015 under the title “Remembering our calling: MLK Day 2015.”  I have a small legacy as a teacher. As I approach retirement next year, I reflect on that. When I entered medical school, I had no idea what I was in for. I struggled, lost faith–almost quit. I’m glad I didn’t because I’ve been privileged to learn from the next generation of doctors.

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

As the 2015 Martin Luther King Jr. Day approached, I wondered: What’s the best way for the average person to contribute to lifting this nation to a higher destiny? What’s my role and how do I respond to that call?

I find myself reflecting more about my role as a teacher to our residents and medical students. I wonder every day how I can improve as a role model and, at the same time, let trainees practice both what I preach and listen to their own inner calling. After all, they are the next generation of doctors.

But for now they are under my tutelage. What do I hope for them?

I hope medicine doesn’t destroy itself with empty and dishonest calls for “competence” and “quality,” when excellence is called for.

I hope that when they are on call, they’ll mindfully acknowledge their fatigue and frustration…and sit down when they go and listen to the patient.

I hope they listen inwardly as well, and learn to know the difference between a call for action, and a cautionary whisper to wait and see.

I hope they won’t be paralyzed by doubt when their patients are not able to speak for themselves, and that they’ll call the families who have a stake in whatever doctors do for their loved ones.

And most of all I hope leaders in medicine and psychiatry remember that we chose medicine because we thought it was a calling. Let’s try to keep it that way.

You know, I’m on call at the hospital today and I tried to give my trainees the day off. They came in anyway.

CDC Identifies Preliminary Covid-19 Vaccine Safety Signal

The CDC announced that a prelimary Covid-19 Vaccine Safety signal has been identified in a recent update on their website:

“Following the availability and use of the updated (bivalent) COVID-19 vaccines, CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), a near real-time surveillance system, met the statistical criteria to prompt additional investigation into whether there was a safety concern for ischemic stroke in people ages 65 and older who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent. Rapid-response investigation of the signal in the VSD raised a question of whether people 65 and older who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with days 22-42 following vaccination.

This preliminary signal has not been identified with the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent. There also may be other confounding factors contributing to the signal identified in the VSD that merit further investigation. Furthermore, it is important to note that, to date, no other safety systems have shown a similar signal and multiple subsequent analyses have not validated this signal:

  • A large study of updated (bivalent) vaccines (from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) using the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services database revealed no increased risk of ischemic stroke
  • A preliminary study using the Veterans Affairs database did not indicate an increased risk of ischemic stroke following an updated (bivalent) vaccine
  • The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) managed by CDC and FDA has not seen an increase in reporting of ischemic strokes following the updated (bivalent) vaccine
  • Pfizer-BioNTech’s global safety database has not indicated a signal for ischemic stroke with the updated (bivalent) vaccine
  • Other countries have not observed an increased risk for ischemic stroke with updated (bivalent) vaccines”

The CDC says it’s “very unlikely  that the signal in VSD represents a true clinical risk…” The data and additional analyses will be discussed at the January 26, 2023 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

No changes are recommended to the current Covid-19 vaccination practice:

“CDC continues to recommend that everyone ages 6 months of age and older stay up-to-date with COVID-19 vaccination; this includes individuals who are currently eligible to receive an updated (bivalent) vaccine. Staying up-to-date with vaccines is the most effective tool we have for reducing death, hospitalization, and severe disease from COVID-19, as has now been demonstrated in multiple studies conducted in the United States and other countries:

  • Data have shown an updated COVID-19 vaccine reduces the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19 by nearly 3-fold compared to those who were previously vaccinated but have not yet received the updated vaccine.
  • Data have shown that the updated COVID-19 vaccine also reduces the risk of death from COVID-19 by nearly 19-fold compared to those who are unvaccinated.
  • Other preliminary data from outside the U.S. have demonstrated more than 80% protection against severe disease and death from the bivalent vaccine compared to those who have not received the bivalent vaccine.

Overall safety data for the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines are available here.

Once again, no change is recommended in COVID-19 vaccination practice, which can be found here.”

Bivalent Covid-19 Booster Protects Us

University of Iowa Health Care participated in research which demonstrates that people over age 65 who got the updated bivalent Covid-19 vaccine booster:

  • “84% less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with unvaccinated people 
  • 73% less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with people who received monovalent mRNA vaccination alone but had not received the bivalent booster dose.”

Viral Story Rabbit Holes on the Web

Sena told me about the viral story on the web entitled “A Woman Removes Painting Varnish and Uncovers Husband’s 50 Year Old Secret.” It’s dated December 27, 2022. The story is written in slide show format, which has a rabbit hole feel to it, especially after I try to verify the details.

You’ve probably seen this or a slightly different version of it. The basic stem is somebody finds out her spouse has a longstanding secret life that she learns of only after he dies, leaves her a painting which is apparently worthless but underneath a lot of paint or varnish lies a note or some other object which leads to the discovery that he led a secret life and left her a vast fortune. Sometimes the story changes even this detail.

I found other similar versions which differ mainly in small details, none of which I can verify—not even the identity of the author of the story. For example, who is Lindsey Charleston? I can’t find out, even though I can find the web site “History All Day” where supposedly this author is listed among others, who are also anonymous. No biographical data is discoverable about the writers.

The pictures in the story are taken from web sites offering free images, such as pixabay. I’ve used images from sites like that. One of them features a video which is a slide show, featuring a photo of a woman who looks shocked and the picture is marked as copyrighted and being from “YouTube PBS.” It appears to be from PBS Antiques Roadshow, and it’s just a slide, like all the rest of the images. There’s no actual video with this particular woman in a green blouse. One of the slides shows a picture of Fiona Bruce, the hostess of the BBC version of Antiques Roadshow. After this last picture, there’s an ad by Amazon. In fact, the slide show has several interrupting ad photos.

However, the YouTube PBS picture is linked to another version of this story which is a video and it’s dated February 3, 2021. It looks like there are many different versions of this video. The names of the people involved, even the nationalities, are all apparently different. Yet the thread of the story is similar to the one published 3 days ago. One striking similarity is the photo of Fiona Bruce! Moreover, the narrator reveals that the art work was featured on the British TV show, “Fake or Fortune,” a show hosted by Fiona Bruce.

And the narrator of this video sounds robotic, like one of those non-human digital recordings because occasionally the accent falls on the wrong syllables. Near the end of the video while it is still in progress, another video is superimposed showing a fisherman and 3 bear cubs, entitled “Fisherman noticed the three bear cubs sneaking up on him late, what happened next is breathtaking! This is a familiar type of advertisement lure I’ve noticed many times on the web.

There are many different versions of the story showing different characters who are of different nationalities, names, and the identities, like those of the authors of the stories, are all either unknown or impossibly difficult to track down—like going down a rabbit hole.

The stories are identified as “Viral Stories” which seems to be a web site advertised on the PBS video, but is probably not. I should say I found a web site with that name but it doesn’t list this story or its permutations.

OK, many of you probably already knew this, but I think these are cleverly disguised rabbit hole stories designed to lure the reader into advertisement traps. Many of them are tagged with the short word “Ad” somewhere on the photo link—but some are not.

Incidentally, the featured image for this post is an obvious plug for my book. I don’t have to use cute bear cubs to get you to buy it—do I?

Snow Day!

I wrote this post yesterday because I didn’t know whether or not we’d have a power outage because of high winds (up to nearly 50 mph) predicted for the Arctic Blast this week.

When we’re not outside scooping our walkway and driveway, we’ll probably be playing cribbage or, God forbid, Scrabble (which I always lose).

We’ve heard about the renewed interest in board games, one of them being Scrabble. We recently found an old Scrabble game at Old Capitol Town Center (formerly Old Capitol Mall). It’s Super Scrabble and it was on sale for $50 at a hole-in-the-wall shop lacking an entrance sign. The high price is because it’s a collectible relic from the past, although a quick internet search revealed it was made in 2004—hardly an antique. You can find them on eBay for $30. On the other hand, you can find them going for as much as $179 at an on-line store called Mercari.

We’ll also probably take a break by munching on our Christmas cookies.

I’m all set for the freezing weather. I’ve got my thermal underwear out and sweats out, along with my heavy gloves.

The wind will probably make shoveling pointless at times. We’ll probably bag it and then I’ll practice the juggling behind the back trick—another pointless activity.

Total Lunar Eclipse Blood Moon This Freezing Morning!

I took my very first selfie ever with my smartphone, which I’ve had for about 7 years. The occasion is the 2nd total lunar eclipse blood moon I’ve ever seen, which started at about 2:00 AM this morning.

It was so cold outside I had to wear a sweater and my winter coat with hat and gloves. I could see my breath for crying out loud. Temperatures were in the mid-30s out there but the wind made it feel even colder, close to freezing.

I hope my photos turn out. If they don’t, I’m going to be very disappointed.