Category: Psychiatry

Treating depression with ketamine: We need incremental treatment for depression

Recently, the Food and Drug Administration approved a nasal spray version of the drug Ketamine, named Spravato (esketamine), for use as a supplement to oral antidepressants taken by adults living with treatment-resistant depression. The announcement wa…

Adverse childhood experiences: How changing a child’s environment can help

Some children present to me with complex problems or multiple problems that fail to resolve after the typical interventions. I recall a child with severe abdominal pain. He had tried numerous medicines and had had scopes and studies galore. It had reac…

Clarity amidst chaos: an evolving perspective on resilience-building

I found myself in the privileged position recently of participating in the National Stop the Bleed Research Consensus Conference, at the table with an extraordinarily committed and compassionate group of thought leaders exploring the role, challenges a…

We need RVUs for obtaining a prior authorization

I haven’t counted how many times this happens every month, but I find it annoying. I send a prescription for a drug (sometimes not even expensive) to the pharmacy and soon after, I get a fax asking me (or my medical assistant) to go online and print a …

Teaching medical professionalism through literature

A excerpt from From Reading to Healing: Teaching Medical Professionalism through Literature (Literature and Medicine). There are several traditional ways to teach about professionalism. Some training programs have didactic lectures on this issue. These…

Teaching medical professionalism through literature

A excerpt from From Reading to Healing: Teaching Medical Professionalism through Literature (Literature and Medicine). There are several traditional ways to teach about professionalism. Some training programs have didactic lectures on this issue. These…

Refuse to accept that burnout is a natural experience in health care

Burnout is a myth. Dedicated clinicians, working under circumstances that connect their skills and compassion with opportunities to impact patients, won’t experience burnout any more often than they might by doing other jobs. The story we tell — …

Physicians can choose not to be powerless against opioid addiction

I didn’t become a primary care doctor to treat opioid addiction. I wasn’t trained for it. To be honest, it scared me. But when you work, like I do, at a clinic that serves a lot of people who have little money or who struggle with mental health and sub…

Social isolation is a health risk

More than two-thirds of Americans use social media, and 90 percent of adults in the U.S. have a cell phone. With these tools surrounding us, we must be more connected with one another than ever before. Right? It doesn’t feel like we are. At least, the …

Esketamine is not a breakthrough new drug: Why the nasal spray for depression is old news

The FDA has given official approval to market eskatamine as a treatment for depression. As expected, there has been great fanfare (press releases, morning TV talk show guests, NPR segments and so on). The news leaves me salty. The esketamine story reve…