This is a Dirty Dozen update on catatonia, inspired by a colleague, Dr. James Beeghly, MD, who delivered an excellent presentation on the subject at a recent departmental Grand Rounds conference. It’s a follow-up to the catatonia quiz and I hope it clarifies a couple of points. I have other posts on catatonia here as well, all […]
This is a special Dirty Dozen using material by permission from Dr. Allen Frances’ book, “Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis”. Dr. Frances’ first chapter contains a section called “A Dozen General Tips” about the process of psychiatric diagnosis. It contains many lessons I’ve been teaching medical students and residents for many years. The material in this […]
Well, I was supposed to participate in a telephone conference call with the Iowa Board of Medicine about Maintenance of Licensure (MOL) in Iowa on April 25, 2013, but when they called me at 3:30 PM, the board was already running 20 minutes late and I was too busy to really participate. On that particular […]
This is a video with powerpoint presentation I put together recently after realizing that there are some practical realities to staffing a medical-psychiatry unit that make it an interesting challenge in the era of integrated care. I owe a lot to Roger Kathol, MD who built the Medical-Psychiatry Unit at The University of Iowa Hospitals […]
This is yet another Dirty Dozen presentation, this time about psychodynamic psychotherapy. I frankly admit that I don’t do formal, sit-down, 50 minute hour psychotherapy with patients, and that’s because of the nature of my role as a psychiatric consultant. I’m running all over the hospital on this hit-and-run service, putting out fires, and I […]
This is another psychotherapy presentation. Interpersonal psychotherapy is a time-limited, dynamically informed psychotherapy designed to ease suffering and improve interpersonal functioning. The earliest description is that of the developers, Gerald. L. Klerman and Myrna. M. Weissman, in their book, Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression, published in 1984, and from which the following quotation is lifted: The field of […]
This is a Dirty Dozen on cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), one of the major psychotherapeutic methods which is effective in a variety of psychiatric disorders. Since 2001, psychiatry residents have been required to learn about it and it has to be a part of their training. Dr. Aaron Beck, MD, is the originator and he’s […]
This is another Dirty Dozen, this time on the common elements in psychotherapy. If there were not a Dirty Dozen on psychotherapy on this blog, it would just not be a both/and site, would it? And it would tend to feed the notion that psychiatrists are all about the pills. So this is a presentation […]
This is a variation on the Dirty Dozen, for Earth Day 2012. I wrote the poem for Earth Day and for my wife, Sena, who is an avid gardener and who is very close to the earth–and my heart. Hold On to Me At the root of my heart, Where the mystery starts, In your heart […]
This is a Dirty Dozen on the Medical-Psychiatry Unit. The Med-Psych Unit has been in operation at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics for many more years than I have been there and it was started by Dr. Roger G. Kathol, MD, CPE, who now is the principal leader of Cartesian Solutions, see link […]
This is another GeezerVideo, which is a Dirty Dozen on suicide risk assessment. Suicide risk assessmet is arguably the most important thing psychiatrists do. While it may be debatable that we can ever prevent suicide in general psychiatric practice (see references), there are ways to develop a more systematic approach to suicide risk assessment. Slide […]
Catatonia is a complex neuromotor disorder which is not well-studied, partly because of its relative rarity. It can be seen in both medical and psychiatric disorders and is eminently treatable sometimes with benzodiazepines and most importantly, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which can be life-saving. Patients can suffer and even die from such medical complications as dehydration and […]
This is a variation on the Dirty Dozen, for Earth Day 2012. I wrote the poem for Earth Day and for my wife, Sena, who is an avid gardener and who is very close to the earth–and my heart. Hold On to Me At the root of my heart, Where the mystery starts, In your heart […]
This is a video with powerpoint presentation I put together recently after realizing that there are some practical realities to staffing a medical-psychiatry unit that make it an interesting challenge in the era of integrated care. I owe a lot to Roger Kathol, MD who built the Medical-Psychiatry Unit at The University of Iowa Hospitals […]
Well, I was supposed to participate in a telephone conference call with the Iowa Board of Medicine about Maintenance of Licensure (MOL) in Iowa on April 25, 2013, but when they called me at 3:30 PM, the board was already running 20 minutes late and I was too busy to really participate. On that particular […]
This is a Dirty Dozen update on catatonia, inspired by a colleague, Dr. James Beeghly, MD, who delivered an excellent presentation on the subject at a recent departmental Grand Rounds conference. It’s a follow-up to the catatonia quiz and I hope it clarifies a couple of points. I have other posts on catatonia here as well, all […]
This is another Dirty Dozen presentation, this time on Somatoform Disorders. It can be complementary to the Dirty Dozen on Factitious Disorder and Malingering. ADDENDUM: The DSM-5 and the book “Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Responding to the Challenge of DSM-5 by Dr. Allen Frances, MD have a lot to say about the somatoform disorders. The […]
So AMA MorningRounds alerted me to the news that blueberries and strawberries can slow down cognitive decline based on a study published in the Annals of Neurology [1]. Now you have to eat those berries for at least twenty years, but you don’t have to eat them by the bucket. Although the conclusions may be […]
What follows is my non-copyrighted summary of my approach to the psychiatric evaluation of candidates for organ transplantation. I don’t consider myself a transplant psychiatrist and I very seldom conduct these assessments nowadays. You should not take my word as gospel and always consult your physician about any matter concerning health care. The content in […]
Have a look at an early rough draft of the delirium order set our delirium project worked on. It’s still in progress and there’s a lot we could do with it. We cobbled this together from several different order sets anybody can Google on the web. The part about the route of administration of antipsychotic […]
Hey, lend me your ears. I just read an article on preventing postoperative agitation using acupuncture. The authors checked for delirium using the Delirium Observation Screening Scale (DOS) and used press needles to prevent agitation after surgery in 4 elderly demented patients [1]. DOS scores were higher than 3 pre-op but much lower with […]
Recently I was consulted by intensivists in the intensive care unit to evaluate depression in a critically ill patient. The patient’s identity will be protected by fictionalizing the story and I’ll call her Mrs. D. She was in her early 80s and admitted to the ICU with pneumonia and sepsis. The ICU physicians were requesting […]
Well Said…