Elliott B. Martin Jr, MD

During the pandemic, Albert Camus’ existential novels have become newly popular—and with good reason.

Psychiatry, at this moment anyway, remains blood-test and imaging-free. It offers the last frontier of semi-free thought to the thinking person who wishes to enter medicine. More in this opinion piece.

The biggest challenge we have faced thus far has been a three-fold rise in requests for assistance in managing persistent delirium. Needless to say, we are not twiddling our thumbs.

As we get past the surge (fingers crossed) of COVID-19, the two most striking pathologies we are seeing are a much greater volume than usual of delirium as well as persistent encephalopathy.

Some health care workers have been particulary vulnerable to the stress of uncertainty and loss of control engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrated by 3 cases presented here.

Recognizing violent incidents as “acts of domestic terrorism” contribute nothing toward our understanding of the mental processes that drive such behavior. More in this commentary.

The author presents for consideration and discussion two personal stories in which the so-called Tarasoff Rule, or the “duty to warn” a threatened third party, was invoked. One was arguably appropriate; the other, arguably not.

Our ability to speak freely regardless of role, training, or experience is one element that allows psychiatrists to discuss their fears and limits as clinicians.

Walter Benjamin’s suicide is especially interesting as a bridge from the Freudian psychosocial era of hysteria-neuroses to the current era of the borderline-narcissist.

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and this may indeed be the most telling legacy of the lost art of healing.

“Hey, man, why is the world so crazy these days?”

Playing helpless witness to a growing epidemic with no cure takes us back in time. The Hippocratics called it the “art” of medicine. It does not take a psychiatrist, however, to see that this “artful” approach frequently fails in public health crises.

If you're up for a little ancient humor, you'll love this original translation of an ancient Babylonian text in which a physician is jilted on a fee, then is further embarrassed in his efforts to collect it.

Any physician can predict death as the outcome of a fatal illness, but the physician who can predict death from among seeming randomness has certainly acquired a superior level of insight.