Recently, we saw a rabbit in our back yard on one occasion and a feral tabby cat on another day doing what they do best.
The cat was hunting and the rabbit was on the lookout for hunters. The hunted and the hunter are both alike in many ways except for the most obvious—one gets to eat the other.
Otherwise, in action they are both like coiled springs: alert, jumpy, and ready to do what they do best, flee or pounce.
Whether you are predator or prey, you do this every day.
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 90th 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.
Sena was looking up the meaning of a four-leaf clover the other day. You might call it a shamrock although that’s usually reserved for the 3-leaf variety. It’s fitting for St. Patrick’s Day to say the four-leaf clover is special because it’s rare to see one. The four leaves represent faith, luck, love, and hope.
The trouble going on in Haiti is regrettable to say the least. However, it also reminded us of how lucky it was for us to have known one of my former colleagues, Dr. Christopher T. Buresh, MD. He was an emergency room physician at the University of Iowa Hospital until just a few years ago, when he and his family moved to Seattle, Washington. Dr. Buresh is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine with the University of Washington. He’s also Assistant Program Director of their Emergency Medicine Residency Program.
The connection between Dr. Buresh and Haiti goes back a long way. Many Haitians were lucky he and other physicians volunteered to help provide medical care for them on an annual basis for years.
Chris is really a humble, likeable, and practical guy. He and his family were our next-door neighbors for a while and fascinating things were going on there at times. We remember they built this really cool tree house that sort of looked like it grew out of their main home. They even had an apparatus for a zip line between the two structures. I don’t think the zip line ever actually got installed, but it was intriguing.
He and I sometimes saw each other in the emergency room at University of Iowa Hospital. His energy, compassion, and dedication to patient care were an inspiration to colleagues and learners at all levels. Sena saw one of his presentations about his volunteer work in Haiti. He never mentioned the difficult politics of the situation. He emphasized the work of caring for the Haitians most of all and gave credit to members of the team doing everything they could in that challenging and, I’m sure, sometimes horrifying environment.
It would be easy to just sit and wonder why he left Iowa, and to be sorry about that. On the other hand, when you thing about the 4-leaf clover, you really have to wonder about something else. Maybe he had one in his pocket with all four of what we all want: faith, luck, love, and hope.
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.
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.
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.
I saw this interesting article on a study about the effect of chair placement on physicians’ behavior when in a patient’s room, specifically whether it altered the length of time a doctor spends with a patient or the level of satisfaction patients had with the interaction. In this study, it didn’t lengthen the time, but seemed to strengthen patient satisfaction with interaction with the physician. It’s a concept I recognize because I took this one level up—I carried my chair with me on hospital rounds in my role as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist.
I got a gift of a 3-legged camp stool from a colleague who ran the palliative care service at University of Iowa hospital. Other members of the palliative team had been using them as well.
Patients got a big kick out of a doctor who carried his chair around with him and actually sat down to talk with them. The way the camp stool folds up apparently made it look like nunchucks to some patients, so I got jokes about that occasionally. It really helped build rapport.
The only drawback with the camp stool was that my one of my legs would go numb the longer I sat on it, and could lead to a challenge getting up from it gracefully because it was partly a balancing act. Even so, I often spent much more than 10-15 minutes with patients.
Once, the stool actually broke and I dropped unceremoniously on my butt while evaluating a patient for catatonia—who proved not to be catatonic by the apparent facial expression of mirth as I fell on the floor. In that sense, the chair actually became a part of the evaluation—accidentally.
Thomas Hackett knew all about this. He was a famous consultation-liaison psychiatrist and a past president of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP). One of his quotes from an early edition of the Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of General Hospital Psychiatry fits perfectly in this context:
“As a matter of courtesy, I sit down when interviewing or visiting patients. Long accustomed to the ritual of making rounds, many physicians remain standing as a matter of course. Standing, physicians remind me of missiles about to be launched, poised to depart. Even if that is not necessarily true, they look the part. Patients sense this and it limits conversation. In addition, when standing, the physician necessarily looks down on the patient. This disparity in height is apt to encourage the attribution of arrogance. Looking down at a patient who is prone emphasizes the dependency of the position. Sitting at the bedside equalizes station. Sitting with a patient need not take longer than standing with him.”— Hackett, T. P., MD (1978). Beginnings: liaison psychiatry in a general hospital. Massachusetts General Hospital: Handbook of general hospital psychiatry. T. P. Hackett, MD and N. H. Cassem, MD. St. Louis, Missouri, The C.V. Mosby Company: 1-14.
Reference: Effect of chair placement on physicians’ behavior and patients’ satisfaction: randomized deception trial BMJ 2023; 383 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-076309 (Published 15 December 2023)
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.
We watched the section of the CDC ACIP meeting about RSV vaccines on February 29, 2024. There was a lot of discussion on the safety of the vaccine. It looks like it will still have a requirement that you have a shared clinical decision-making meeting with your physician. I think that still implies you’d need a prescription. However, there are only a handful of states which would require a prescription from your doctor. Iowa is one of them.
That made the comment by one of the committee participants thought provoking. I believe she got the RSV vaccine from a pharmacist, who asked no questions. There was no shared clinical decision-making discussion with that pharmacist.
But there was a discussion during the meeting with a pharmacist who was in the room. She made it clear that pharmacists had plenty of training (“20 hours” along with additional learning) and could handle the shared clinical decision-making piece with patients.
Sena and I have had all of our vaccines including the Covid-19 shots administered by pharmacy techs. I hardly know what the pharmacists look like because they are a blur, managing the drive-up window and all other customers. It’s clear that a large proportion of vaccines are available at most pharmacies and the techs give the shots. They are pleasant and happy to apply the Band-Aid.
You can’t even telephone the pharmacy and talk to a live person. Sometimes you’ll get a recording which replies to most of your questions with “Sorry, I didn’t get that. Did you say you want a vaccine or a cheeseburger with fries?” Scheduling vaccine appointments are generally done on line. Scheduling a visit with the pharmacist is probably not easier than scheduling one with your doctor, who might confuse you with “the colonoscopy” in room 5.
I’ve looked at the health care professional section on the CDC website pertaining to the age and medical conditions necessary to qualify for getting the RSV vaccine. I’m pretty sure I’m in the right age category, although I stopped keeping track after the evolution of asparagus. I don’t have any chronic medical conditions, unless you count dad jokes. I exercise, juggle, take only a multivitamin a day, meditate, and regularly leap tall buildings in a single bound. I’m pretty sure I don’t need the RSV vaccine, but what do I know? I’m a retired psychiatrist.
It looks like the risk of getting Guillain-Barre Syndrome (pronounced “GBS”) is not zero and may or may not be associated with the RSV vaccine. It’s pretty clear that 2 of the 3 major manufacturers of the vaccine who attended the meeting were pretty sensitive to any hints their product might have anything to do with GBS and might challenge you to a no holds barred thumb wrestling match if you say otherwise.
We think there’s a long way to go before everybody’s clear on who gets the RSV vaccine and when, and also where. But you can’t get it at the pharmacy drive up window.
A couple of days ago the temperature was in the mid-seventies, which is pretty balmy for February. We took the opportunity to get out for a walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail. It’s coincidental, but we did the same thing on the exact same date last February. It’s under the same condition for the most part—escaping from the bad news on the web. The difference was the temperature; it was only in the fifties last year.
The remarkable thing last February was that another trail walker claimed to have seen 16 bald eagles. I’ll have to say that we doubted it, at first. But shortly after that, we caught sight of half a dozen. There were also the quilted hearts we saw, connected to the “I Found a Quilted Heart” project, the goal of which is to make you happy.
This time, although we didn’t find any quilted hearts, we saw a young bald eagle in flight. It was a little hard to tell what it was at first. Bald eagles don’t look bald when they’re in the juvenile stage. I had to look it up. Juveniles look pretty mottled. I wondered if its parents were the bald eagle pair, which we saw at Trueblood in December of 2023. Probably not, given that nesting begins in January, incubation lasts over a month and the eaglets take their first flight over two months later, according to the Iowa Dept of Natural Resources. But it’s fun to think about.
This junior bald eagle looked a little clumsy, both in the air and near the water’s edge. It looked like it might have caught a little fish. It seemed like it was trying to learn how things work in the world and how it’s supposed to fit in.
Instinct takes care of most of that for a bald eagle. Humans have a lot of figuring out to do. We ran into somebody on the trail who told us a great deal about local history. Over time, a lot of things have changed in Iowa City. That goes for the world, too. Much of the time, the changes don’t always seem to make life better, at least according to older people who talk about them.
But the seasons come and go. Bald eagles lay eggs. Eaglets fledge. They don’t gaze up at the moon. Humans do look up at the moon, and occasionally fly there. It’s hard to know why.
There are plenty of earthly mysteries. We saw small black handprints on the Trueblood sidewalk, not far from the shelter. I can’t figure out why they would be there, and what’s more, I can’t find out anything on the internet that explains it. So much for the internet. I supposed I could take a chance and ask Artificial Intelligence (AI) about it, but I’m not confident it wouldn’t just make something up.
We also found a little badge on the ground. It was labeled National Museum USAF Junior Flight Crew. This time, when I checked the internet, I found out there is a lot of information about it on the internet—but none of it helped me understand why it would be on the ground along the Terry Trueblood Trail. You can find a very long article on the internet about how items from the National Museum USAF might not have been handled the way they should have been. You can buy one for about $20 or so on eBay, if you’re interested.
I think it’s more interesting to see how the junior bald eagles learn their way around the world. They earn their wings the old-fashioned way.
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