There is a National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) walk scheduled for May 6, 2023 at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area. See the announcement here.
Category: Iowa
The Other Feral Tabby Catches Lunch
This is the companion to yesterday’s post about the gray Feral Tabby and its encounter with the whitetail deer.
This cat is orange and white and it might be a litter mate to the gray one, just a guess. It does a great job of hunting for mice.
And it caught one!
Feral Tabby Cats On The Prowl!
Yesterday, we saw a gray cat with black stripes (one broad black stripe down its back) in the outlet in back of our house. It was about the size of a large housecat. It definitely was not big enough to be one of the large cats which can be seen in Iowa. It wasn’t a lynx, bobcat, or mountain lion. I think it was hunting for rodents.
And today, believe it or not Sena alerted me to another cat in the same location, only it was brown and white. It looked identical otherwise.
I was stumped until I thought of tabby cats. I’m not a cat person so the only way I would know this is because I’ve heard the term before. I found out the tabby cat has a marking on its forehead that looks like the letter “M.” The markings are often striped or swirled. The term “tabby’ doesn’t refer to any particular breed of cat; it just refers to the markings. I think both cats have an “M” marking on their foreheads.
I think Sena saw a cat like this not that far from our back yard last year. It was surrounded by kittens.
I wonder if they’re feral. That led me to the internet. According to one web site, both stray and feral cats are called “community cats.” Strays usually are accustomed to being around humans and can be lost or abandoned. Feral cats are not used to being around humans and live wild.
So, I think these cats are feral tabbies and maybe they’re litter mates. Some say that a large percentage of feral cats are tabbies. I don’t know if they’re male or female—and you can’t pay me enough to check. I gather it’s tough to tell a cat’s gender just by looking at it. Males tend to have wider jowls, and tend to be bigger.
If you think I’m mistaken about what kind of cats these are based on the video, please let me know.
The other interesting thing about the gray feral tabby sighting was how whitetail deer reacted to the cat’s presence. We watched as a deer seemed to approach it warily, staring at it while stamping its hooves. We got the impression that the deer did not want the cat in what looks like its territory, judging from how often deer graze there—which is daily.
I found information on the internet suggesting that deer don’t get along with feral and stray cats. One YouTube video showed deer being aggressive to a stray cat. It makes sense that deer would hate cats. Deer are prey for large cats like mountain lions.
In general, all cats including feral cats can transmit a parasite, Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), to both deer and humans. Infection with T. gondii is usually asymptomatic. You get it from eating undercooked meat or contact with cat feces. There are a few studies suggesting that there is a relationship between toxoplasmosis and schizophrenia, although it’s not clear what that connection is yet (Osman E, Mohammad Zahariluddin AS, Sharip S, Md Idris Z, Tan JK. Metabolomic Profiling Reveals Common Metabolic Alterations in Plasma of Patients with Toxoplasma Infection and Schizophrenia. Genes (Basel). 2022 Aug 19;13(8):1482. doi: 10.3390/genes13081482. PMID: 36011393; PMCID: PMC9408728.)
The gray cat left the area, although I’m not sure it was because it felt threatened by the deer or because it just wasn’t having any luck finding food.
Today, the sighting of the brown and white feral tabby was exciting because I caught video of it catching a mouse!
Whitetail Deer Think Your Lawn is a Salad Bar
We have a small herd of whitetail deer who regularly visit our lawn because they think it’s a salad bar. They’re all over the neighborhood because the city apparently doesn’t have a consistent deer population management plan. I don’t know anything about the animals, other than what I care to look up on the internet.
We saw several bucks the yesterday. One of them was missing an antler. It might have been lost in a fight with another buck.
As far as we could tell, most of the deer seemed pretty healthy, although I guess you can’t really tell which ones might have chronic wasting disease just by looking at them.
One animal looked like it might have suffered an injury, possibly from a buck. The lesions looked like they might be healing.
I guess this time of year, they would be molting. That probably explains why some of them look scraggly.
Sena taps on the windows and orders them off the property. That doesn’t work. Sometimes they look up at you like they know you’re staring at them—but they usually ignore you and go back to munching on your lawn.
I wonder if I’d feel differently about culling the whitetail deer if I watched hunters actually cull them—or kill them. The word “culling” actually sounds like a nicer version of “killing.” The definition of culling is the reduction in the population of wild animals by “selective slaughtering.”
The origin of the word “cull” is interesting. It comes from the Latin verb colligere, meaning “to gather.” In general, it means to collect a group of animals into separate groups: one to keep and one to kill. Usually, it’s about killing the weak and sick ones.
On the other hand, the origin of the word “kill” seems to be obscure. Of course, it means to strike, hit, put to death. It might derive from an Old English word, “cwellan,” which means to murder, or execute.
Cwellan, cull, kill. I think it’s a coincidence they sound similar. None of them sound like “Bambi.” When me and my brother were little, we had a toy record player that played a simplified version of the Disney classic movie, Bambi. It had either a little storybook that came with it or a little slide show. It got a lot of use. One slide showed a shadowy image of a big stag. Eventually the record got stuck on a place that cried over and over, “Man!”
Maybe that’s why the city doesn’t have a whitetail deer culling plan.
Hello, I’m Dr. James Caramel Brown
I read Dr. Moffic’s article, “The United States Psychiatric Association: Social Psychiatric Prediction #4”. I think the rationale for renaming the American Psychiatric Association makes sense.
However, it also got me thinking about the names of other associations connected to the APA (here meaning American Psychiatric Association). One of them is the Black Psychiatrists of America, Inc. We make up about 2% of psychiatrists in the United States.
It also reminded me to once again do a web search for the term “Black psychiatrists in Iowa.” It turns out the results would lead to a repeat of my previous post “Black Psychiatrists in Iowa” on May 7, 2019. Nothing has changed. My colleague Dr. Donald Black, MD is still coming up in the search. Just as a reminder, he’s not black.
It probably comes as no surprise to readers of my blog that this also reminds me of a couple of Men in Black scenes.
Video of Men in Black scene, Dr. Black and Dr. White quotes.
And my post still appears high up in the list of web sites. There has also not been published a more recent edition of the Greater Iowa African American Resource Guide than the one in 2019. You can still find my name and that of Dr. Rodney J. Dean listed in the 2019 edition as the only black psychiatrists in Iowa.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m retired. I have never considered changing my name and title to Dr. James Caramel Brown. If you noticed that the “Caramel Brown” part is from Men in Black 3 (Agent J talking about what Agent K should say about his skin color in his eulogy for him), give yourself a pat on the back.
Agent J: Can you promise me something, if I go first, you’ll do better than that at my funeral? Yeah, something like, uh: “J was a friend. Now there’s a big part of me that’s gone. Oh, J, all the things I should have said, except I was too old and craggy and surly and just tight. I was too tight. Now, I’m gonna just miss your caramel-brown skin.”
Agent K: I’ll wing something.
Anyway, I’m not sure what to do about renaming the American Psychiatric Association. But I think whoever is in charge of google search results for the term “black psychiatrists in Iowa” could improve on the current situation.
Random Connections
Today, I read Dr. George Dawson’s blog post, “How I ended up in a high-risk pancreatic cancer risk screening clinic.” As usual I was impressed with his erudition, scientific literacy, and rigorous objectivity, even as it pertained to a deadly disease which runs in his family genetic history. I couldn’t help admiring his courage.
And, whether this is a random connection or not, this somehow led to my remembering Dr. George Winokur, a giant in the scientific study (including genetics) of psychiatric diseases, especially mood disorders. He died of pancreatic cancer shortly after he was diagnosed with it in the spring of 1996.
Dr. Winokur was chair of the University of Iowa Department of Psychiatry from 1971 to 1990. He remained on faculty, actively involved in research and teaching up until the day of his death in October of 1996.
I was a resident in psychiatry at University of Iowa from 1992-1996 and I have a clear recollection of meeting with Dr. Winokur in his office during my last year, when I was preparing for job interviews. I knew he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
He had been actively recruiting me to accept a position in the department and did so even as we spoke briefly. I remember noticing that he gripped an electrical conduit on the wall next to his desk so tightly that I wondered if he were in pain.
He was the main reason I stayed in Iowa. He had a great sense of humor. All of us residents loved him. There was even a list of his “commandments” all new residents received when they began their residencies at Iowa.
Winokur’s 10 Commandments
- Thou shalt not sleep with any UI Psychiatry Hospital patient unless it be thy spouse.
- Thou shalt not accept recompense for patient care in this center outside thy salary.
- Thou shalt be on time for conferences and meetings.
- Thou shalt act toward the staff attending with courtesy.
- Thou shalt write progress notes even if no progress has been made.
- Thou shalt be prompt and on time with thy letters, admissions and discharge notes.
- Thou shalt not moonlight without permission under threat of excommunication.
- Data is thy God. No graven images will be accepted in its place.
- Thou shalt speak thy mind.
- Thou shalt comport thyself with modesty, not omniscience.
I never got the impression that George Winokur recruited me because I was black, although it was pretty obvious to me that I would be the first black University of Iowa psychiatry department faculty member. He had too much class to make that an issue.
I’ve known a few classy psychiatrists. Maybe the connection is not so random.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
This is St. Patrick’s Day and, although I didn’t wear green today, Sena got me some Irish beer. It’s Guinness Extra Stout. The back label extols the virtues:
“Intense characterful and bold, Guinness Extra Stout is the pure expression of our brewing legacy. Bittersweet, with subtle hints of hops, dark fruits and caramel, this stout is a testament to great brewing.”
That dark fruit better not be dates or prunes. It’s brewed in Ireland.
This being Friday night, I wonder if John Heim (aka Big Mo) will mention anything about St. Patrick’s Day tonight on the KCCK Big Mo Blues Show, radio station 88.3 in Cedar Rapids or 106.9 in Iowa City.
Maybe he’ll mention May Ree and her hand-battered catfish. It’s better because it’s battered. Maybe the recipe includes a couple of bottles of Guinness Extra Stout, with notes of dark fruits and caramel. Dark fruits which are not dates, I hope. Allowable notes can be sharp or flat, blue, high, or low—but not dates.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Catatonia Education Resources
I noticed what is, for me at least, a new educational resource for catatonia. There’s an aricle about it in the March 2023 issue (Vol.51, No. 3) of Clinical Psychiatry News. The resource is available at University of Rochester Medical Center website. They include pdf files and training videos for assessment of catatonia.
There are also links for information about catatonia:
The University of Rochester presentation has has demo videos using a standardized patient (a physician, Dr. Joshua Wortzel) and a teacher, Dr. Mark Oldham.
I saw cases of catatonia while I was a consultation-liaison psychiatrist at The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics and they often had medical causes. My YouTube video lecture on Catatonia, Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome, and Serotonin Syndrome is still getting views after 4 years.
Remember Spring Forward All Your Clocks Tonight!
Today is the day to move clocks forward by one hour for Daylight Saving Time. Well, technically, we’re suposed to change the clocks at 2:00 a.m. on March 12, 2023, which is Sunday.
I usually do this in the afternoon of the day before (which would be today), which drives Sena crazy.
However, today Sena changed all the clock times this morning. Payback?
See this website for more information about which states have tried legislating this time change. Iowa is on record with a bill supporting permanent DST, but it won’t go anywhere without federal approval.
University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art Wins Prestigious Master Builders of Iowa Award
The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, won the highest Master Builders of Iowa Award. See the Russell Group Inc. website for more details about the award.
It’s a very impressive space and a must-see marvel when you visit Iowa City.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 