In the era of #MeToo, Missy Elliot, Whitney Houston, Tyler Perry, Oprah, Ashley Judd, Gabrielle Union, Teri Hatcher and, now, Padma Lakshmi — keeping kids safe and helping adults heal is our job as physicians. I am a pediatrician — and I am an incest survivor. My perpetrator was also a physician. I bore a dirty secret before I knew what a secret was. The person who hurt me was …
I am both relieved and nervous because they say that the first year is the worst, but now I have the overarching cloud of doom following me around during second year: Step 1.
Now that I’m home, I constantly am wondering how I made it this far — in disbelief that I passed all my courses pretty well. I constantly ask myself if exams were too easy and if I’m just …
There exists a large, mostly-underground, growing community consisting of those iatrogenically harmed by benzodiazepines. Guilty only of following doctors orders, these patients are marginalized and misunderstood. This has been enabled, at least in part, by poor terminology.
Recently on Twitter, Michael P. Hengartner and Marnie Wedlake both posted critical questions in response to a benzodiazepine news story:
In response to …
Burnout affects as many as 50 percent of physicians. Interventions have been proposed at virtually every stage of a physician’s life, from medical school to residency training to professional practice. While the rigors of medical training certainly contribute to the high levels of burnout in the profession, there are indications that the trouble begins at the undergraduate level.
I recently graduated from an undergraduate program geared toward students interested in medicine. …
He was the go-to sports guy in Washington, DC. A masterful surgeon with countless academic publications, he trained orthopaedic surgeons across the world and was the top physician for professional sports teams and Olympians.
Dr. Benjamin Shaffer had it all.
Yet Ben was more than a stellar surgeon. He was a kind, sweet, brilliant, and sensitive soul who could relate to anyone—from inner-city children …
The upgraded responsibility and authority given to starting residents is both a blessing and a curse. Suddenly, the need for co-signatures vanishes. There is greater autonomy in clinical practice. Residents get paid. However, residency can also be a time of significant stress. Residents are forced to navigate the demands of preceptors, other residents, medical students, nurses, patients, family members, and administrators. Residents have very little control over what they do, …
Imagine spending days or even weeks in an emergency room without treatment for a broken leg or painful kidney stone.
Patients in psychological crisis across the country are living this exact scenario. Long waits in an ER, hospital room or prison for an inpatient psychiatric bed, otherwise known as psychiatric boarding, are their unfortunate reality.
Rewind to over 50 years ago — as institutionalized patients were gradually integrated into communities, the availability …
We’ve all been through difficult times. It may be the death of someone we love or suffering abuse with no one to help. In life, many events fly at us that are hard to manage. Many of us just suffer silently through the pain, not allowing anyone in. And even while we do that, we also know that is not the healthiest response.
Many patients come to me struggling with anxiety …
“Oh, you’re a psychiatrist? I hope you won’t analyze me!”
I never know what people actually mean when they say that upon learning that I work as a psychiatrist.
I think they’re saying, “I hope you’re not going to spend our time together trying to discern my flaws.” Nobody wants people to seek out, highlight, and exploit their vulnerabilities and faults, so I can understand that. Of course, that’s not what psychiatrists do.
Anyway, …
A lot has been written about Suboxone, the buprenorphine treatment drug. For many, Suboxone acts as an effective medication to treat opioid addiction. For others, it’s a highly-valued street drug that is commonly diverted and misused. To understand and acknowledge the darker side of Suboxone we have to look back at its history over the past 16 years.
History of Suboxone
Suboxone was first approved by the FDA in 2002 to treat …
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 63,632 individuals died in 2016 as a result of drug overdose. Among these, 66 percent died from opioid overdose. The statistics are derived from in-depth research that was carried out by the research institute in 2016. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that cases of drug abuse are swiftly spreading geographically and increasing demographically. The …
I sometimes get messages from people who have lost physician colleagues and loved ones to suicide. It’s the specifics of these stories that wound me: a note left for an unexpected person; an insignificant fight at sign-out that in retrospect is full of meaning; the white coat that a woman wore when she jumped to her death. Each of these lives is complex, and each of these deaths …
Summer is upon us, and with it comes the end of the academic year, graduations and the arrival of the newest crop of interns. Soon these fresh-faced physicians will enter into one of the most remarkable educational experiences of their medical careers: residency. Many of these soon-to-be-interns are looking to attendings now for advice on how to excel during (or survive through) the arduous first year of training. Suggestions like …
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Where I practice, the process of referring a patient suffering a mental illness is quite infuriating. The wait to get in to see a psychiatrist or psychologist can be months all the while patients are suffering. Worse yet, with certain insurances, there are just no mental health providers available for any of their covered patients. The failure of treating mental health disease in the U.S. is glaring.
In the U.S., approximately …
What is borderline personality disorder (BPD)? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, unstable moods; impulsive and reckless behavior, and unstable or volatile relationships may be indicative of BPD. People with BPD often have high rates of co-occurring disorders, such as depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and eating disorders, along with self-harm, suicidal behaviors, and completed suicides. They often make poor life choices and take unwise risks. Thus, adults with …
Well done! Strong work! You’ve done it!
Four years (often more) of perspiration have earned you two extra letters (often more) in your name. You should be proud. Nothing should get between you and a gigantic glass of bubbly today. The world feels different. You feel different. But are you?
The thing about ceremonies that feature costumes, protocols and rituals is that they confer upon participants a sense of change. Just look …
Cyberbullying is a major and growing public health problem associated with increased risk of greater psychiatric morbidity and mortality among children and adolescents. Its prevalence, varieties, associations with other forms of maltreatment, risk factors and deleterious effects in different populations are poorly understood.
Furthermore, effective, evidence-based approaches to screening and prevention in different populations are lacking. Developing such approaches is challenged by the rapidity and unpredictability with which electronic social media …
Martha (not her real name) was not an overly complex case in my field of geriatric psychology. But the case was complex enough to require multiple approaches and reliable follow up. And in rural Mississippi, follow up can be elusive. Soon it occurred to me that Martha’s case is emblematic of how caring for this vulnerable population often runs up against a huge problem — the Medicare merry-go-round.
A 78-eight-year-old with …
In 1994, Penguin Books published what would become a national bestseller titled, Listening to Prozac written by Dr. Peter Kramer, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Brown University at the time. Throughout the book, he debates the ethics of “cosmetic pharmacology” a term associated with the transformation of personality traits through medication. Kramer describes several patients as becoming “better than well” on Prozac — more socially adept, less inhibited, and …
Since the advent of the internet and rise of social media, patients can connect and compare their experiences with prescribed drug withdrawal. A problem that was once considered rare is a worldwide epidemic that is finally getting noticed. A recent New York Times article discussed the problems many have discontinuing antidepressants, and more than 8,800 readers responded about their difficulty stopping …
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