According to Chris Jordan, a New Jersey shore native who writes about music and entertainment, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed “like their lives depended on it” when they recently kicked off their 2023 tour in Tampa, Florida early February. The tour will keep the 73-year-old Springsteen on the road for six months, playing a total of 62 concerts, proving that mortality can be a …

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Several years ago, a good friend and colleague – the chairman of a psychiatry department – notified people about his retirement in a department newsletter. He wrote, “I sent out a letter to the alumni and adjunct faculty that I will retire on June 30 [2021]. I had decided five years ago that when I reached a certain age, I was going to retire. Such decisions have multiple determinants and …

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“Raise your hand if you said you wanted to become a doctor to help people during your medical school interview. I see practically every hand in the room raised. Keep them raised if you told your interviewer you also wanted to become a doctor to overcome personal trauma.”

Everyone lowered their hands.

“I’m dismayed there are no honest people here,” I joked to attendees at an annual meeting of the American Psychiatric …

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Can you absolutely and unequivocally answer “no” to all of the following questions:

Has your license to practice in any jurisdiction ever been limited, restricted, reduced, suspended, voluntarily surrendered, revoked, denied, or not renewed?

Have you ever been reprimanded by a state licensing agency, or are any of these actions pending with respect to your license; are you under investigation by any licensing or regulatory agency?

Has your professional employment or membership in …

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Most experts recommend that premed students seek medically-related jobs to gain early proficiency and support their medical school application. There is nothing like valuable hands-on experience, they say, for students to demonstrate their passion and knowledge about the field of medicine. According to the article “25 Health Care Jobs To Get Before Medical School,” written by the Indeed Editorial Team, “students who fill their resumes with volunteer work, …

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Dear Art:

On Friday, June 11, 1982, members of the faculty convened to discuss the performance of the psychiatric residents during the last six (6) months. The following is a summation of their comments as they apply to your performance.

The faculty’s reaction to your performance was uniformly excellent. There was some comment on your earlier fear of the psychotherapeutic role, but the consensus was that this has improved markedly and that …

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Color is often used as a metaphor for personality and emotion. Terms like “red in the face,” “feeling blue,” and “green with envy” are etched in the vernacular. Great leadership requires emotional intelligence, and the best leaders lead in full color.

Colorful leadership is about seeing the whole picture, unfiltered by our own preferences and experiences. Colorful leaders have been depicted in books, movies, and songs. The “flower exercise” …

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I applaud the efforts of several states that have enacted legislation to make it easier for physicians to get mental health treatment without incurring the wrath of physician health programs (PHPs). PHPs, while well-intended, are notoriously disruptive to the lives and careers of physicians struggling with depression, substance use disorders, and other mental health conditions. PHPs have a reputation for implementing unreasonable requirements and being coercive, sometimes worsening …

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I left practice 25 years ago when I saw portents of clinical practice as it exists today: impersonal, with electronic records and assembly-line labor heralding the movement to institutional employment over private practice.

But it was also my genuine interest in population health and pharmaceutical medicine that propelled me into a nonclinical career. The jobs I chose in this millennium were with health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, …

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Microaggressions are common, subtle, offending behaviors and attitudes that stem from implicit (unconscious) bias. Individuals targeted by microaggressions are different than us — different in their look, skin tone, gender, sexual preference, socioeconomic status, educational level and age.

Implicit bias refers to unconscious stereotypes, assumptions, and beliefs held about an individual’s group identity. They affect our understanding, actions, and decisions and increase Read more…

For years, scholars have thought the perfect surgery consult was impossible. Comedic ophthalmologist Will Flanary, a.k.a. Dr. Glaucomflecken, characterizes the golden consult as one in which the surgeon is not consulted too soon — because the patient is not sick enough to require his or her services — and one in which the surgeon is not consulted too late, or else …

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