Category: reflections

  • 22nd Anniversary Commemoration of 9/11 Attacks

    22nd Anniversary Commemoration of 9/11 Attacks

    The 22nd Anniversary Commemoration of the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center will be observed today. I remember where I was on September 9, 2001. I was climbing the stairs at the hospital on my way back to my office. I was on duty on the psychiatry consultation service. I happened to glance…

  • Should Doctors Be Funny?

    Should Doctors Be Funny?

    I ran across an interesting Medscape article, “Should Doctors Be Funnier? These MDs Are Real Comedians.” I don’t know if they should be funny, but it probably wouldn’t hurt. I think a sense of humor is a good thing for anyone to have and it’s probably not that hard to develop. There’s even a Wikihow…

  • Another Blast from the Past

    Another Blast from the Past

    Today is Labor Day, and I was looking at some of my old blog posts from my previous blog The Practical Psychosomaticist. I found one that I think I haven’t reposted on my current blog called “Going from Plan to Dirt.” It’s a funny post, at least I think so. It draws a comparison between…

  • The AARO Finally Has a Website And is it Part of a Zero-Sum Game?

    The AARO Finally Has a Website And is it Part of a Zero-Sum Game?

    The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) finally has a website—more than a year after it was formed. It looks like there’s an intriguing message in the section “Coming Soon: US Government UAP-Related Program/Activity Reporting.” It says AARO will accept reports of UAP from current government employees who know of any programs or activities related to…

  • Why Can’t I Wear Blue After Labor Day?

    Why Can’t I Wear Blue After Labor Day?

    I have a few thoughts on the upcoming Labor Day weekend. It occurs to me that Labor Day often evokes images of blue-collar workers. On the other hand, I think in a broader view of the holiday, most of us can think of ourselves as working toward improving our society no matter whether our jobs…

  • “I Have a Dream” Speech 60 Years Later

    “I Have a Dream” Speech 60 Years Later

    Today is the 60th anniversary of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. I was too young to remember it. However, I have a deep appreciation of the meaning it has not just for Black people, but for all of us. It’s not…

  • The Thing About Identity

    The Thing About Identity

    I was searching on the web for something about my co-editor, Robert G. Robinson, MD, for our book Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, published in 2010. The reason I was searching for something about him was that I’ve had difficulties finding anything on the web lately about doctors I had worked with years…

  • How the Metta Prayer and the Shower Juggle Are Alike

    How the Metta Prayer and the Shower Juggle Are Alike

    I’ve been practicing mindfulness meditation since 2014, when I became uncomfortably aware of how unpleasant I was becoming on the job and elsewhere. I called this “burnout.” The word still works as an explanation although it was and is sometimes still an excuse. I learned about the Lovingkindness meditation or the Metta Prayer during the…

  • Remembrance of Dr. William R. Yates MD

    Remembrance of Dr. William R. Yates MD

    I was thinking about the Clinical Problems in Consultation Psychiatry (CPCP) learning sessions which was introduced to me by one of my first teachers in the University of Iowa Dept of Psychiatry, Dr. William R. (Bill) Yates. I had originally been thinking of posting one of my own CPCPs that I presented in 2015. It…

  • Hawaii Memories

    Hawaii Memories

    The wildfires in Maui are so devastating. We wish everyone the best. We also had a wave of nostalgia back to 1997 when we visited the Hawaiian Islands on our first vacation in a long while after I finished my psychiatry residency in 1996. The plane trip was very long and what I remember most…