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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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Not Ambivalent I’m A Hawkeye
I searched the web for a picture of ambivalence and had a tough time finding one. The featured image comes close. The reason I’m ambivalent is because of a conflict I have about the Iowa Hawkeye football program, which is currently the subject of a lawsuit by former African American players compared to the University…
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Lucky Spring Birds Are Back!
We finally got a sunny break yesterday and headed out to the Terry Trueblood Trail for a walk. It was good to stretch our legs. The spring birds are back. The Tree Swallow nest boxes are installed, although one of them was upside down. I’m not sure how that happens. A sparrow chased one of…
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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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Going Down Blogging Memory Lane
I’ve been going down the blogging memory lane lately and thought I’d repost what was probably the very first post I published on my first blog, The Practical Psychosomaticist. The title was “Letter from a Pragmatic Idealist.” While a lot of water has gone under the bridge since mid-December of 2010, some principles remain the…
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Get Happy Now
I think nearly all of us would agree that the last two years have been especially hard on the human race. It’s tough to be happy. Or would it be better to say it’s tough to find happiness? Or should you say that there are few things to be happy about? What I’m getting at…
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Musing on Coincidences
We’re waiting for another state road map cribbage board, this one is Wisconsin. If you’ve seen the cribbage game video we made, “Pegging Around Iowa,” you get the idea. We’ve been to Wisconsin, briefly. It’s a complicated story. It was roughly 13 years ago. We moved to Madison so I could make another stab at…
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Clear Creek Trail 2nd Day of Spring
Since it’s the 2nd day of spring, we went for a walk on the Clear Creek Trail in Coralville (a stone skip away from Iowa City). The trees were bare except for the buds about to burst that Sena gets so excited to see this time of year. The birds are shy because there’s not…
