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NAMIWalks Today and Beyond!
We drove by Terry Trueblood Recreation Area today and were amazed by the big crowd of people. We found out about the NAMIWalks today because of the signage and people everywhere at the park. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has been around since 1979, and you can read more from the top fundraiser…
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Black Psychiatrists in Iowa: A Brief Update
I was just googling the search terms “Black Psychiatrists in Iowa” and “African American Psychiatrists in Iowa” recently after finding a broken link in my 2019 blog post “Black Psychiatrists Iowa.” I always think it’s funny that the results of my web search invariably show mainly a couple of mistakes. One is that I typically…
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Break The Retirement News Gently to Doctors
I’ve seen several articles on Medscape about how to convince doctors to retire or even force them to retire when they’re too old to practice. The articles are titled, “How Old Is Too Old to Work as a Doctor?”; “Are Aging Physicians a Burden?”; and “When Should Psychiatrists Retire?” The Great Resignation almost makes the…
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Looking Back on Gunslingers and Chess Masters
I was looking at an early version of the handbook of consultation-liaison psychiatry that eventually evolved into what was actually published by Cambridge University Press. I wrote virtually all of the early version and it was mainly for trainees rotating through the consult service. The published book had many talented contributors. I and my department…
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They Did Learn How to Check for Delirium!
Here’s another oldie but goodie blog post, “It’s Survey Time.” It’s a blast from the past (May of 2011) but it needs a short introduction on why I’m reposting it. So, I’m about a week out from my surgery for a detached retina. I’m doing pretty well. I keep thinking about a question a nurse…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Don’t Look in the Dictionary for Mental Health and Mental Illness
I read an interesting article in Clinical Psychiatry News the other day, written by Dinah Miller, MD in the Shrink Rap News column, “Psychiatry and semantics.” Dr. Miller’s point was that it’s sometimes hard to define terms when discussing mental illness and stress. Can stress be defined as a mental illness? What the heck is…
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Our Impressions of University of Iowa Free Webinar Yesterday: The Stories That Define Us”
We were overall delighted with yesterday’s presentation, University of Iowa Free Webinar: “Breaking Barriers: Arts, Athletics, and Medicine (1898-1947).” It’s one in a series of 4 virtual seminars with two more scheduled this month, which you can register for at this link. February 15: Endless Innovation: An R1 Research Institution (1948–1997) February 22: The Next…
Go Retire Psychiatrist 