Category: Psychiatry

As the pandemic winds down, another crisis may be looming

Imagine this scenario: a busy mom struggles to balance work and parenting during the pandemic when suddenly her teenage son begins to anger. He gets out of control, screams threats, and kicks a hole in the wall. Neighbors call the police, who recommend…

Can a magnet treat depression?

The rates of depression in the U.S. have tripled over the last year, with over 25 percent of adults expressing symptoms of depression. While depression was always a leading cause of mental illness and disability, it has become a worsening problem durin…

A physician hung himself. That could have been me. [PODCAST]

“We eventually got the news that Dr. Rathburn had hung himself from one of those beautiful trees that the wind made dance. How sad. It adds to my own grief. Who had found him? How did he look? Babies born with a nuchal cord have the cord wrapped …

10 replaceable thoughts (and 15 books) to help you survive burnout

Physicians are leaving the broken medical system at unprecedented rates. We continue through a war with an uncertain liberation day, and we are exhausted. Meanwhile, the only battlefront in which we have control is that of our mind. We have not been ta…

Maternal mental health in the time of COVID-19: How to find support

Motherhood can be joyous, frustrating, terrifying, miraculous, exhausting, and messy. It is all these things at once in normal times. But these, as we know, are not normal times. Among the many aspects of life that COVID-19 has upended, maternal mental…

Can people really change?

An excerpt from Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues. We believe that people can change. We couldn’t have stayed in the business we’re in for this many decades if we hadn’t seen it happen repeatedly. People m…

The legend of the “oatmeal law”

During my psychiatric residency, I had the good fortune to train with a number of public and administrative psychiatrists. These individuals focused their attention on the care of the severely ill and the underserved and understood the systems of care …

Suicide is never the answer, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic

The pandemic has not been kind to mental health. We’re all feeling the impact of the last year and all that changed in how we live our lives. While rates of anxiety and depression in the U.S. jumped as people isolated themselves from friends and family…

How switching to psychiatry made me understand suicide far better [PODCAST]

“I realized that training in psychiatry would give me the opportunity to understand suicide far better, and hopefully allow me to make a difference at an earlier stage. My exposure to psychiatry in medical school was clearly not enough. I was ill…

Trying to bury trauma does not work

Rationale: Sometimes it helps to talk about trauma; sometimes it helps to just listen. Having a safe, supportive, confidential, affirming environment to do both or either is important. Background: I have been offering workshops on “managing stress and …