History – Page 11 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

The Big Mo Pod Show on KCCK

There is a new show on the KCCK radio station at FM 88.3 broadcast out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa (106.9 in Iowa City). It’s called the Big Mo Pod Show, which is keyed to his previous Friday night Big Mo Blues Show which starts at 6:00 PM.

The show generally quizzes the DJ, Big Mo (John Heim) on some of the tunes (name of artist, name of the song, why he played the song) he played the previous Friday night. A good example was Friday, April 19, 2024. You can access the show on different platforms, which are announced at the end of the show.

Big Mo did alright. He got most of the answers right, including the one by John Primer, “Crawlin’ Kingsnake.” I also like John Primer’s song “Hard Times.”

Remember, the Big Mo Pod Show is recorded and based on the Big Mo Blues Show from the previous Friday night. You can hear it by going to KCCKdotorg web site and click the Listen tab to find Shows on Demand to find “BigMoPodShow.”

Biggish Events in Iowa in 1982

We’ve been watching for the house finch eggs to hatch sometime soon here. Remember they’re the ones who are nesting in the artificial Christmas tree on our front porch.

The 2023 edition of the book Birds of Iowa Field Guide, written by Stan Tekiela says the house finch was first seen in Iowa in 1982. That makes it a big year for house finches and for Iowa.

It got me to wondering what other big things happened in Iowa in 1982. A number of events as it turns out.

Terry Branstad was first elected governor of Iowa in 1982. He was 36 years old and at the time was the country’s youngest chief executive. After that, it seemed like he never stopped being the governor—even when he wasn’t, which was seldom. He was governor for 22 years. He was notable for being the nation’s longest-serving governor in history as of 2016.

In 1982, the University of Iowa Hawkeye football team went to the Rose Bowl—and lost to Washington 28-0. Coach Hayden Fry was not happy. The biggest thing about it was the long running party before the game.

While we were in Ames in 1982, there was evidently a big fire that destroyed the Iowa State University Alpha Iota chapter fraternity house. We don’t recall it. One of the members of the fraternity named Steve Shamash, wrote a five-page story about it. One quote (author unknown at the time by Shamash) is worth sharing about how the fire affected the fraternity:

I hunted for the author of the quote and I think it’s by Orison Swett Marden who wrote How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune. The full quote is:

“Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idle industrious. Neither do uninterrupted success and prosperity qualify men for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager.”

One of the biggest things was the Grateful Dead concert at the University of Iowa Field House. We never went because we were living in Ames at the time. I was an undergraduate at Iowa State University. You can hear the songs at the Internet Archive. The only one I recognize as being by the Grateful Dead is “Truckin.”

Sena surprised me by reminding me she bought me a colorful Jerry Garcia necktie while I was a resident in the Psychiatry Department at the University of Iowa in the mid-1990s. I don’t remember that at all, probably because my brain was fried from being post-call most of the time.

The University of Iowa Role in the Science Behind Psilocybin for Psychiatric Treatment

On April 9, 2024, the University of Iowa educational podcast, Rounding@Iowa presented a discussion about the study of the use of psilocybin in the treatment of psychiatric and addiction disorders. You can access the podcast below. The title is “Psilocybin Benefits and Risks.” The format involves an interview by Dr. Gerard Clancy, MD, Senior Associate Dean for External Affairs, Professor of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine with distinguished University of Iowa faculty and clinician researchers.

In this presentation, the guest interviewees are Dr. Michael Flaum, MD, Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, and Dr. Peggy Nopoulos, MD, Chair and Department Executive Officer for the University of Iowa Department of Psychiatry, Professor of Neurology, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.

All three of these highly respected and accomplished faculty taught me when I was a trainee in the psychiatry department and afterward were esteemed colleagues.

89: Tick-borne Illnesses – Rounding@IOWA

Join Dr. Clancy, Dr. Appenheimer & Dr. Barker as they discuss prevention, diagnosis and treatment of various tick-borne illnesses. CME Credit Available: https://uiowa.cloud-cme.com/course/courseoverview?eid=82296 Host: Gerard Clancy, MD Senior Associate Dean for External Affairs Professor of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Guests: Ben Appenheimer, MD Clinical Associate Professor of Internal Medicine-Infectious Diseases Assistant Director, Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program Associate Clinical Director, Infectious Diseases Co-Medical Director, TelePrEP, University of Iowa Health Care University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Jason Barker, MD Associate Professor of Internal Medicine-Infectious Diseases University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Financial Disclosures: Dr. Gerard Clancy, his guests, and Rounding@IOWA planning committee members have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Nurse: The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine designates this activity for a maximum of 1.0 ANCC contact hour. Pharmacist and Pharmacy Tech: The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine designates this knowledge-based activity for a maximum of 1.0 ACPE contact hours. Credit will be uploaded to the NABP CPE Monitor within 60 days after the activity completion. Pharmacists must provide their NABP ID and DOB (MMDD) to receive credit. JA0000310-0000-26-038-H01 Physician: The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine designates this enduring material for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. Other Health Care Providers: A certificate of completion will be available after successful completion of the course. (It is the responsibility of licensees to determine if this continuing education activity meets the requirements of their professional licensure board.)

The link icon adjacent to the title of the podcast takes you to the podcast website. The link to the article in Iowa Magazine about the psilocybin research at University of Iowa Health Care tells you more about Dr. Peggy Nopoulos and her role as principal investigator in the study.

There is also a link to the National Library of Medicine Clinical Trials web site where you can find out more details about the study design. You’ll notice a banner message which says: “The U.S. government does not review or approve the safety and science of all studies listed on the website” along with another link to a disclaimer with more details.

Svengoolie Triggers Memory Lane Trip to the Drive Ins

Both Sena and I stayed up to see the cheesy 1972 horror flick The Gargoyles last Saturday night. No kidding, Sena stayed up for the whole thing! The show runs from 7-9:30 PM but the actual movie is only a little over an hour long. It’s about a clan of gargoyles that every 500 years hatch from eggs and wage war on humans to take over the planet. They never get the job done, probably because humans have all the guns and all the gargoyles have are claws and flimsy wings which you don’t see used until the very last scene. Like all of the Svengoolie movies, all of the jokes are so bad they’re good.

You can ask a fair question, which would be what else is on in addition to the movie? There’s a lot of commercials, of course, as well as the corny jokes and skits. But the other features last Saturday were excerpts from the Flashback Weekend Chicago Horror Con, in August 2023. I think it’s an annual historical horror convention that takes place in Rosemont, Illinois.

One of the attractions was a panel presentation about the history of the 90^th anniversary of the drive-in theater hosted by Svengoolie and Joe Bob Briggs. It was arguably better than the feature flick. I have heard the history elsewhere about how the drive-in theatre began (I think it was on the travel or history channel).

The most interesting part of the history is how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced the recent history of the drive-in theaters. The point was that, when the pandemic hit the country, all indoor theaters closed, leaving the drive-ins the only place to watch movies for several weeks. They did pretty good business.

Moreover, horror movies and drive-ins go together like cheese and crackers (see what I did there, cheese as in cheesy movies?). OK, fine.

Anyway, horror films were mainly linked to low budget projects that big stars and big directors avoided like the plague. Mainly, those movies were played at the drive-ins—which is how they got a tarnished reputation. That led to cherished stories by older people who used to sneak their friends into the drive-ins by stowing them in the trunks of their cars. That probably did happen, even in the old Mason City Drive-In Theater in Iowa where Sena and I grew up. It was demolished in 1997.

As far as The Gargoyle movie goes, the one thing I couldn’t find out was exactly why Bernie Casey, who played the head gargoyle, didn’t voice his own lines. The web references I found just mentioned briefly that it was because his natural speaking voice didn’t fit the character. They were dubbed in by Vic Perrin who did the voice-over for the introduction to The Outer Limits.

Maybe the funniest scene was when the head gargoyle placated and playfully slapped the fanny of the female head breeder gargoyle after she noticed he was flirting with the human woman he kidnapped. The breeder was obviously really jealous. Maybe this means that the battle between gargoyles and humans will always come to a stalemate because we’re too much alike.

Getting Ready for the Solar Eclipse!

Sena has placed the order for our eclipse glasses and eclipse T-shirts. They should get here in plenty of time for the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. And if the weather is really crappy that day—we have 30 days to return them.

There is an interesting history of eclipses on the NASA website. It mentions how Einstein hypothesized that gravity warped space and time, distorting the universe. The sun is big enough that its gravity could bend light. In fact, during the eclipse on May 29, 1919, scientists noted that some stars were in the wrong place, proving Einstein’s theory.

And now for some eclipse jokes:

What do you call it when you fall in love on April 8, 2024? A total eclipse of the heart.

What will the moon bring to the beach on April 8, 2024? Sunblock.

Jupiter to the moon on April 8, 2024: Do you remember the sun?

Moon: No, I blocked it out.

Sena: How do you organize a solar eclipse party?

Jim: I don’t know. How?

Sena: You planet!

An interesting Iowa history story is about the solar eclipse of 1869. Several small markers were placed in various locations to mark the event. Many were lost. They were plowed out or covered up. The author mentions the upcoming 2024 solar eclipse and wonders if anyone will leave markers to remember it.

I think what some may leave behind are tattered eclipse glasses and cheeseburger wrappers. But we’ll have our memories to pass on in stories, pictures, and dad jokes—a living monument.

Svengoolie and The Comedy of Terrors

Last Saturday on Svengoolie, I watched for the second time the 1963 movie “Comedy of Terrors,” a slapstick horror spinoff of Shakespeare’s farce, “Comedy of Errors”—which I’ve never seen. I didn’t see the whole movie the first time around, and I can’t remember exactly where I saw it. Most likely it was on Svengoolie.

The movie story is not actually based on the Shakespeare comedy itself. Most of the lines by Basil Rathbone (as Mr. Black) sounded vaguely familiar and I think they were from “Macbeth.” Vincent Price (Mr. Trumbull) plays an evil mortician and Peter Lorre (Mr. Gillie) plays his bungling assistant. They bury people in a casket which they use over and over because they dump the corpses in the graves after the mourners leave. Boris Karloff plays Hinchley, the senile father of Trumbull’s wife, Amaryllis who is played by Joyce Jameson.

Basil Rathbone as Mr. Black is the landlord who threatens to evict Trumbull from his house if he doesn’t come up with the rent sooner rather than later. This leads to Trumbull’s plan to kill Mr. Black—who doesn’t stay dead more than a few minutes, repeatedly springing back to life and flawlessly reciting Shakespeare in a thundering voice, before collapsing periodically back into his lifelong affliction with bouts of catalepsy.

Now, you know I’m going to have something to say about catalepsy because I’m a retired consultation-liaison psychiatrist and I’ve seen enough patients with catatonia who display various signs of that neuropsychiatric disorder, including catalepsy. According to the University of Rochester Bush-Francis Catatonia Rating Scale Assessment Resources, catalepsy is defined as “Spontaneous maintenance of posture(s), including mundane (e.g., sitting/standing for long periods without reacting).”

After Mr. Black has an apparent heart attack after being shocked by the sight of Mr. Gillie, who sneaked into his house, the butler calls for the doctor. The butler reminds the doctor that the distinguished gentleman suffers from periodic episodes of “catalepsy.” The doctor insists that Mr. Black is dead after applying a perfunctory examination.

After that Mr. Black abruptly snaps into and out of periods of catalepsy typically reciting Shakespeare perfectly, even after Mr. Trumbull shoots him a few times. Needless to say, catalepsy is only one feature of many. It almost invariably appears in those who have severe neuropsychiatric illness such as schizophrenia or epilepsy and they would rarely be able to speak so eloquently.

What amazed me is that all of the actors remembered and spoke their lines perfectly, despite being lengthy and polysyllabic.

Although the film didn’t do well at the box office, I thought it was pretty funny. You can view it for free at the Internet Archive.

Remember The Calling

I recommend Dr. George Dawson’s recent posts on seeing the practice of medicine as a calling and his passing a big milestone with 2 million reads on his blog.

I wrote a post entitled “Remembering Our Calling: MLK Day 2015.” It was republished in a local newspaper, the Iowa City Press-Citizen on January 19, 2015. And I reposted it in 2019 on this blog.

The trainees I taught also taught each other about psychiatry and medicine when they rotated on the consultation-liaison service at the hospital. We put them into the format of short presentations. I called mine the Dirty Dozen. The trainees and I also presented the Clinical Problems in Clinical Psychiatry (CPCP).

There were many of those meetings, which were necessarily short and to the point because the service was busy. We got called from all over the hospital. We answered those calls and learned something new every time.

I posted a lot of the trainees’ presentations in my previous blog, The Practical C-L Psychiatrist, which was replaced by this present blog. I haven’t posted the presentations partly because I wanted to give the younger teachers their due by naming them as they did on their title slides. But I would want to ask their permission first. They are long gone and far flung. Many are leaders now and have been for many years. I still have their slides. I’m very proud of their work. When they were called, they always showed up.

So, you’ll just have to put up with my work and my cornball jokes.

Thoughts on Journalist Sydney J. Harris

I just have a few things to say about Sydney J. Harris, who was a journalist whose columns were syndicated to over 200 newspapers. I remember reading them in the Des Moines Register years ago.

I ran across one of his books for sale on Amazon. I’ve never read any of them, but I found one of them, “Winners and Losers” on sale “new” for $111 and change. I was astonished. I admire his diction and learning, but I would never pay that much money for one of his books. You can buy them for less than $5, even on Amazon. You can read “Winners and Losers” for free on the Internet Archive.

You can also find a lot of quotes from Sydney J. Harris on the web. I found a collection which I thought were admirable. Funny thing is, the more I read, the more I thought he was a product of his times. I thought I could detect a little male chauvinism (maybe more than a little). The more quotes I read, the more I noticed he almost always used the word “men” or “man” and rarely mentioned women, unless you count:

“The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother—which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.”

Nobody’s perfect.

The Iowa State University African and African American Studies Research Guide

In keeping with Iowa History Month 2024, you can have a look at the Iowa State University website “African and African American Studies Research Guide.”

Iowa State University happens to be my alma mater, or in a way, one of them. I took my Bachelor’s degree there and later graduated from The University of Iowa College of Medicine.

There is a wealth of information worth browsing on the ISU website devoted to the history of black people in Iowa. In fact, I found out a few of those connections were to Huston-Tillotson University (HT-U, an HBCU) in Austin, Texas, where I spent several semesters in the 1970s before later transferring to ISU.

The connections between HT-U and Iowa go way back into the history of that school. It started as Tillotson College in 1875, which is where some of the ISU black students also later worked as faculty. The list includes notable scholars:

Ada M. Deblanc-Yerwood: After graduation from ISU, she became head of Home Economics at Tillotson College. She was also co-founder of the George Washington Carver Museum in Austin, Texas. She also had an interesting perspective on retirement. She didn’t, and pursued other positions. Her answer to why she didn’t retire: “Old is a state of mind. When you do nothing, you become nothing. The need to be productive—give life to something—doesn’t automatically stop at age 65 or 70.”

Dr. Samuel P. Massie, Jr.: Dr. Massie went to ISU in 1941 to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry. He had to hitchhike to campus because there was no housing for Black students within 3 miles. Dr. Henry Gilman at ISU assigned him to work full time as a research assistant on a special assignment connected to the Manhattan Project (the top-secret effort to build an atomic bomb). President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to a Chemistry professorship at the U.S. Naval Academy. He distinguished himself as a scientist in many HBCUs (Fisk, Howard University, North Carolina College, and others) and elsewhere despite the racism that tried to hinder him. In 1981, ISU gave him the highest award—the Distinguished Achievement Citation.

Dr. Frederick Douglass Patterson: He was a brilliant student and he attended Samuel Huston College (see history of Huston-Tillotson College at link above). He also attended ISU, graduating with a DVM in 1923. In his book, Chronicles of Faith, he wrote: “In the veterinary program, I did not feel odd being a part of the group of students working in the veterinary clinic although I was the only black person there. The absence of animosity encouraged me to see veterinary medicine as a field in which I could practice without being hampered by the racial stereotypes and obstacles that would confront me as a medical doctor, for example. I found the teachers of Iowa State helpful whenever I approached them. Educationally, it was a fine experience.” He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He was President of Tuskegee Institute and transformed it into a university. He also founded the United Negro College Fund.

The United Negro College Fund was part of the reason I was able to attend Huston-Tillotson University. And it’s connected to the history of Iowa.

African American Women in Iowa History

In light of March being Women in History Month (as well as Iowa History Month), I’d like to share some history stories about an African American librarian from Mason City, Iowa named Esther J. Walls. In 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an essay about her, “Esther J. Walls: The Role of a Black Leader.” Her life story as a librarian, traveler, and educator is fascinating.

I looked through the list of women elected to the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame and couldn’t find her name. However, I recognized Deborah Ann Turner’s name on the list. She was the first African American woman to be certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in gynecologic oncology. She was also from Mason City, Iowa. Her life story and list of accomplishments is also impressive.

I identify with both of them because they were born and raised in my hometown, Mason City, Iowa. Esther J. Walls was employed at the Mason City Public Library, my favorite haunt because my love of reading and writing began in early childhood.

An archived news item about Esther J. Walls entitled “A Mason City woman’s globe-trotting career” highlights her travels and her sense of humor.