Category: reminiscence

  • An Old Blog Post About My College Days in Texas

    An Old Blog Post About My College Days in Texas

    There’s something embarrassing yet fascinating about reading my old blog posts from years ago. The one I read yesterday is titled simply “I Remember HT Heroes.” I make connections between my undergraduate college days at Huston-Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University (an HBCU in Austin, Texas) and my early career as a consultation psychiatrist at The…

  • Shout Out to the European Delirium Association

    Shout Out to the European Delirium Association

    I just want to give an enthusiastic shout out to the European Delirium Association (EDA). I rediscovered the website. It’s updated and an extremely helpful organization in the study of delirium. It provides excellent education about the disorder. I met one of the past presidents of the EDA, Alasdair MacLullich back in the early 2010s.…

  • Gratitude to Pastor Robert Stone

    Gratitude to Pastor Robert Stone

    I came across a couple of items that prompted my renewed gratitude. One of them was an article in Bloomberg on the web, “US Medical Schools Grapple With First Admissions Since End of Affirmative Action” by Richard Abbey, Ilena Peng, and Marie Patino, published on December 14, 2023. It’s about how hard it is for…

  • Time for Another Blast from the Past

    Time for Another Blast from the Past

    I found an interesting blog post from my previous blog, The Practical Psychosomaticist. I wrote it in 2011 and it’s about the patient experience of delirium. I was delirious briefly after a colonoscopy many years ago. I don’t remember much about it. But from what Sena tells me about it, it was similar to other…

  • Whirlpool Care Counts Laundry Program Cleans Up!

    Whirlpool Care Counts Laundry Program Cleans Up!

    Sena and I just recently saw the TV commercial about the Whirlpool Care CountsTM Laundry Program, which has been providing washers and dryers for schools. It was launched to address school absenteeism, one cause of which is bullying of kids who don’t have clean clothes. They are also more likely to drop out of school.…

  • Rearranging My Books

    Rearranging My Books

    The other day, I finally rearranged my bookshelf. I’ve put it off for a long time. While I was doing it, I remembered where I spend the most time in my thoughts. I don’t have a very broad library, which probably illustrates where my mind wanders. It has changed very little over the years. Retirement…

  • When Should Psychiatrists Retire?

    When Should Psychiatrists Retire?

    In answer to the question in the title, I’ll confess right away I don’t know the answer. The impetus for my writing this post is the Medscape article about an 84-year-old physician who was forced to take a cognitive test required by her employer as a way of gauging her ability to continue working as…

  • On Retiring from Psychiatry

    On Retiring from Psychiatry

    I found this very uplifting and thought-provoking article on retiring from psychiatry by Juan C. Corvalan. He sounds like he’s successfully navigating his retirement. On the few occasions I’ve felt compelled to make a remark about my own retirement, I typically say something like “It’s a mixed blessing.” My retirement is a process, unfolding as…

  • Happy 46th Wedding Anniversary!

    Happy 46th Wedding Anniversary!

    It was 46 years ago today Sena and I were married at the Little Brown Church in the Vale in Nashua, Iowa. I was a skinny guy with a big afro. She was and is a beautiful bride. We cut the wedding cake together. We fed each other big bites. It was the biggest event…

  • Food for Thought

    Food for Thought

    I’m giving a shout-out to a couple of child psychiatrists, one I know only from a blog, The Good Enough Psychiatrist. The other is an assistant professor in the University of Iowa Child Psychiatry Dept. I’ve never met her. Since Jenna gives her name in the About Me section of her blog, I’m going to…