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Congratulations to 2021 UI Physicians Clinical Awards Winners
I was so happy to see the winners of the 2021 University of Iowa Physicians Clinical Awards winners. I have a special bias for a couple of them because I worked with them for years in my capacity as psychiatric consultant in the general hospital prior to my retirement in June of 2020. Dr. Kevin…
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Can Cribbage Cultivate Congeniality?
Sena and I have been playing cribbage since late 2019. It’s a two-hander card game played on a board with pegs for keeping score. It’s been around for about 400 years and some have asked whether it’s a dying game, played mainly by codgers in retirement homes. The question is whether it can promote positive…
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Stretching Our Legs on the Terry Trueblood Trail
We got out on the Terry Trueblood Trail today to stretch our legs, feel the breeze, and free our minds of the daily news, which is usually bad. It’s nice to just listen to the wind and the birds on the lake. We see something interesting every time we walk the trail. Caterpillars were pretty…
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Waiting for Another Jab
I’m still waiting for my Moderna booster, which has to be blessed by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Every time I check the schedule for their next meeting on October 20, 21, I still see a draft agenda. The CDC still does not recommend heterologous boosting, although last week the FDA advisory…
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Music Beat
We listen to the Music Choice Channel almost every night on our TV. I know that must sound odd, listening to a music channel on television. What makes it more interesting are the biographical sketches. The Light Classical Channel bios occasionally have typos and word usage oddities as well as eyebrow raising facts: Mozart’s full…
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Heeeeeere’s Arnie—at the FDA Advisory Committee Meeting
I got a big kick out of Acting Chair of the FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. Dr. Arnold Monto at the FDA meeting last month for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine booster. Everybody else did too, I bet. They all called him Arnie. I’m looking forward to seeing Arnie in action again this…
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Thoughts on Transplant Psychiatry
I see in the news that organ transplant centers have removed a few patients from wait lists because they refuse COVID-19 vaccines. It may seem odd, but this reminds me of an even more difficult situation in organ transplantation. What do you do about those who just refuse organ transplant altogether? I used to be…
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Get This Book: Every Deep-Drawn Breath
I just got Wes Ely’s new book, Every Deep-Drawn Breath. You do need to buy this book to learn about delirium, Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) and what Dr. Ely and colleagues are doing to prevent it. PICS is a syndrome patients suffer after being hospitalized with severe medical illness in critical care units. It includes…
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Rather Fight Than Switch?
I wonder how many baby boomers remember those TV cigarette commercials featuring an actor holding a smoke, sporting a black eye and saying “I’d rather fight than switch.” I guess they ran those ads from the 1960s to 1981. I think of those commercials when I read the news. There are a couple of Iowa…
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Proof of Simulated Reality—Or Cool Camera Trick?
I watch the History Channel TV show “The Proof is Out There” hosted by Tony Harris. Early this year (I think January), an episode featured a snapshot showing a woman who’s mirror reflection didn’t match her facial expression. It was striking. The question was whether this proved we live in a simulated reality (think of…
Go Retire Psychiatrist 