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Thoughts on the Song “Against the Wind”
A couple of days ago, while we were playing cribbage, Sena asked me who sang the song “Against the Wind.” I offered a name, which later turned out to be wildly wrong. It bugged her so much she got up from the cribbage game and went to the computer to look it up. Of course,…
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Thoughts on the GuideLink Center Incident
The attack a few days ago by what was most likely a mentally ill person on staff at the recently opened GuideLink Center in Iowa City reminded me of what may appear to be disparate views by mental health professionals on the link between mental illness and mass violence perpetrators. The GuideLink incident involved a…
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Invasion of the Pregnant Man Emojis!
I just saw a pretty funny story in the news about an old guy who was not allowed to donate blood at a Scotland blood bank because he refused to answer a new questionnaire asking whether or not he was pregnant. I thought that was uproariously funny. Then I read the rest of the story…
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Thoughts About Guns ReBlog
I think there a lot better places to read about viewpoints on mass shootings than my blog. I recommend you check out Dr. George Dawson’s post “Gun Extremism Not Mental Illness,” posted on May 31, 2022, then read the editorial in Scientific American, “The Science is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives,” posted on May 26,…
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Kickball Challenge in June!
The annual Kickball challenge between University of Iowa Department of Psychiatry Residents and Faculty is coming up in June. You know what that means. Losers suspend the winners’ trophy in Jello. Somebody did that when we played Matball several years ago. If you need a recipe: Matball was the forerunner of Kickball in the department.…
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Short History of C-L Psychiatry Fellowship at Iowa
I read a short article, “The case for pursuing a consultation-liaison psychiatry fellowship” by Samuel P. Greenstein, MD in Current Psychiatry (Vol. 1, No. 5, May 2022). After 3 years as an attending, he found his calling as a C-L psychiatrist, especially after getting teaching awards from trainees. But when he applied to academic institutions…
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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…
