With all our graphs and tables, we can lose sight of the nuts and bolts of clinical medicine – signs and symptoms. Symptoms are those things patients report, and signs are things a clinician can see. In studying mental illness, we mostly have to rely on subjective reports of symptoms since the objective signs, like […]
Well, I did it. I posted links to the special issue of Psychophysiology on the elusive RDoC [RDoC…], and I read some of the articles. I only get what they’re aiming at doing, but I’m left with no personal understanding of how this will get them there. There are things that I know I’ll never […]
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Whether you attribute the quote to Mark Twain or to Abraham Maslow, the meaning is clear. Which brings me to Aaron Beck, Sigmund Freud, and Tom Insel [OK, actually to Tom Insel]. When a new chairman appeared in my department in the early 1980s, […]
The Physicians Desk Reference [PDR] has grown since it was introduced in 1947, the year I started the first grade. It was still pretty thin when I started medical school in 1963, just a year after the Kefauver-Harris Drug Efficacy Act passed in the aftermath of the Thalidamide affair. The Act charged the FDA with […]
I suppose a "pardon my French" apology is in order for my outburst in the last post on seeing that Rexulti® television ad yesterday. I’m not big on profanity and I apologize, but sometimes bold, underlined, italicized , or multiple repetitive posts just aren’t loud enough. As I’ve acquainted myself with what I think of […]
I was writing about Harlan Krumholtz’s paper in the BMJ, and took a break to watch The Blacklist episode I missed [on the DVR]. About two-thirds through, I was fast-forwarding through the commercials but I was stopped in my tracks as a logo I recognized flashed by – Rexulti®. So I watched the ad and […]
It’s always good to look back when faced with a contemporary dilemma to see if you’ve been in something similar before. I remembered several thinking about screening: He was a portly New Englander with a gravelly voice [from many allergies] and a sarcastic wit. He was a Corpsman in the Air Force for four years […]
My negative reaction to screening for depression drew a thought-provoking response from EastCoaster: What would you like to see if you had your druthers? I work in an institution that is trying to employ a collaborative-care kind of model. Where PCPs do the prescribing but they consult with a psychiatrist, and they work with a […]
I suppose that with the drought in the PHARMA CNS pipeline, it should have been predictable that thoughts would turn towards the known feel-good drugs [drugs in the street-sense as opposed to medications]. In October, we heard about Special K, a club drug, looking to be reborn as a antidepressant … Ketamine and Other NMDA […]
Screening for Depression in Children and Adolescents: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement by Albert L. Siu, MD, MSPH, on behalf of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Annals of Internal Medicine. Published online 9 February 2016 [full text on-line] Description: Update of the 2009 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force [USPSTF] recommendation on screening […]