Category: reminiscence

  • Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry as a Supraspecialty

    Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry as a Supraspecialty

    I just rediscovered this old blog post below from 2010 in my files. The literature citations are dated, of course. I just wanted to reminisce about how I used to think through issues in consultation-liaison psychiatry. The post is old enough to contain the former term for the field-Psychosomatic Medicine. “At the annual Academy of…

  • Old Blog Post on Decisional Capacity Assessment

    Old Blog Post on Decisional Capacity Assessment

    I just found a blog post I wrote about assessing decisional capacity. It’s over 13 years old and you can tell I was a little frustrated when I wrote it. It was back in the days when consulting psychiatrists were called psychosomatic medicine specialists. Here’s to another blast from the past. Blog from 2011: Thoughts…

  • Another Look at the C-L Psychiatry Pecha Kucha

    Another Look at the C-L Psychiatry Pecha Kucha

    Back in 2018, one of my emergency room staff physicians asked me to do a Pecha Kucha on what a consultation-liaison psychiatrist does. If you know what a pecha kucha is, you can understand why it was challenging for me to put it together and present it. Although you may have seen the video I…

  • Thoughts on Copyright Issues Related to Consultation Psychiatry and Dad Jokes

    Thoughts on Copyright Issues Related to Consultation Psychiatry and Dad Jokes

    I want to gas; I mean talk about copyright as it relates to consultation psychiatry or telling dad jokes. By the way, those aren’t the same.  I used to teach medical students and residents how to do certain quick bedside cognitive tests for delirium and dementia. Over the years the instructions about how to administer…

  • The Dirty Dozen on Delirium in WordPress: A Shortcode Presentation

    The Dirty Dozen on Delirium in WordPress: A Shortcode Presentation

    When I was a consultation-liaison psychiatrist I taught trainees in different ways. One of them was what I called the Dirty Dozen slide sets. They were on various basic topics that are important for psychistrists to know. I tried to put the most important points on only a dozen powerpoint slides. After I started blogging…

  • Jim Has a 27-Year-Old Shirt!

    Jim Has a 27-Year-Old Shirt!

    I have a 27-year-old shirt. It’s denim with a plaid pattern on the front. I wore it when we went on vacation to Hawaii in 1997. In the featured image, I’m wearing it as Sena and I pose for a photo after we got off the plane. We and a lot of other vacationers were…

  • Biggish Events in Iowa in 1982

    Biggish Events in Iowa in 1982

    We’ve been watching for the house finch eggs to hatch sometime soon here. Remember they’re the ones who are nesting in the artificial Christmas tree on our front porch. The 2023 edition of the book Birds of Iowa Field Guide, written by Stan Tekiela says the house finch was first seen in Iowa in 1982.…

  • Our Solar Eclipse Day: A Happening on Terry Trueblood Trail

    Our Solar Eclipse Day: A Happening on Terry Trueblood Trail

    Yesterday, we went out to Terry Trueblood Recreation Area to see the solar eclipse. It was a gorgeous day for it, although a bit chilly. When we got there about 11:30 AM, the parking lot was pretty empty and only a few people were there. We even ran into a few on the trail who…

  • Svengoolie Triggers Memory Lane Trip to the Drive Ins

    Svengoolie Triggers Memory Lane Trip to the Drive Ins

    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…

  • The Changing Role of the Psychiatrist in Managing Depression with Medical Illness

    The Changing Role of the Psychiatrist in Managing Depression with Medical Illness

    This post is mainly a reminiscence about my days as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist. I often evaluated patients who had chronic hepatitis C. The liver disease itself and the treatment (interferon alfa) often led to patients struggling with depression. The impetus for this came from noticing a couple of items. One is the recent l blog…