H. Steven Moffic, MD

Crucial changes occurred that will greatly influence the organization of services, reimbursement, and diagnosis. It even ended in an exclamation point, as the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut punctuated the need for improved mental healthcare services.

What we know for sure is that for all the young children and adults who were killed in Newtown, their world ended a week ago. Soon after the tragedy, one of the fathers of a child killed tearfully pleaded for society to learn from what happened in order to prevent future mass murders. Here, recommendations from a psychiatrist.

In this time of Thanksgiving, the excerpt from “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” most famously sung by Maurice Chevalier, conveys one of life’s blessings for fathers.

Now that President Obama has been re-elected, the Monday morning quarterbacking has begun. What went right in each campaign? What went wrong? Who is next to run in 2016?

Four years ago, the winning presidential slogan went: “Yes, we can. Yes, we can.” We haven’t heard that slogan this time around. Maybe we’ve come back down from this idealism to a more sobering reality.

R.I.P. Rest Inspiring Psychiatrists. I am grateful for having known you.

Psychiatry has much in common with dentistry. After all, long ago psychiatry threw its lot in with the rest of medicine-that is, general medicine, specialty medicine, and surgery.

Ethics in the field of mental health is a concern for every psychiatrist, but what happens when past patients reenter a retired clinician's life in a personal setting?

Psychiatrists, physicians, and mental health professionals are often asked to treat patients facing issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. Here are quick Tips for trans-inclusion of LGBTs.

Retirement requires psychological preparation. The planning and anticipation in itself can sometimes bring even more happiness.

In light of our problems and uncertainties about the state of current psychiatry, or perhaps because of them, what might describe good psychiatry? Following are some suggestions for what we, as psychiatrists, can do.

The mental health toll of any form of discrimination is great.

In our current age of increasingly biological psychiatry, psychiatrists seem to be paying less and less attention to the humanities, even as internists and surgeons are paying more attention.

The trouble with answering this question is that I couldn’t – and still can’t – recall the “best” memory. What much more readily came to mind are some of the worst memories.

I can just sense the uproar now. Dr. Moffic wants state hospitals again? Has he lost it? Well, yes. I do, sort of. Here’s why.

What are the psychological aspects of “going green”? How should we address what some call climate instability and global heating?

Dogs, indeed, may be man’s (and woman’s) best therapist at certain times and in certain situations, with important implications for mental health.

In many climates, a cold February is relieved a bit by the Super Bowl and then by Valentine’s Day-a symbol of hope for falling in love, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly.

Maybe the “Occupy Wall Street” movement suggests a different kind of protest for this year’s APA meeting. What about “Occupy Medicine” for us psychiatrists?

Have you heard the news that citalopram should no longer be used at doses greater than 40 mg? Steven Moffic, MD, explores the issues surrounding this recent recommendation.

In psychiatry, it seems like our traditions are often ignored or discarded as being outdated. Do we not have some time-tested literature that is still relevant to our psychiatric times?

Although memoirs have become all the rage, they are rarely written by anyone in the field of psychiatry . . . and for good reason.

“Love and work are the cornerstones of our civilization.” This quote, rightly or wrongly attributed to Freud, simply and succinctly indicates the importance of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

With all the justifiable concerns about our next DSM, I frankly have more concerns about treatment. After all, diagnosing is really most important as far as it leads to the necessary treatment to help the patient.

Although his plays are suffused with dynastic and generational issues, Shakespeare hardly wrote anything about grandparents per se.

Many will recall “The Decade of the Brain,” when President George H.W. Bush declared that the 1990s would be dedicated to research on neuroscience. If there were landmark findings from that decade, I’m not sure what they were.

I just attended the 40th year reunion of my medical school class at Yale. As is common at these 5-year reunions, we compare our careers and the progress of medicine, although this time more of the focus seemed to be on our personal lives and our new Medicare cards.

The challenge to learn enough relevant information about a patient in brief medication (and evaluative) sessions still exists. And there is also the challenge of picking a medication that will be acceptable and valued-both from a symbolic and biological standpoint.

If Blake were alive today, maybe he’d start one of his famous stanzas with something like, “To see meaning in a 15-minute med check…” If not, I will. Here’s how I’ve come to justify this.

In addition to receiving birthday cards, on this birthday, one of our bloggers, Dr. Moffic, decided to send out a card to all those he loved. It is being reprinted here. "If you are what you love, There is no longer reason to be most modest, so step aside Muhammad Ali, for I Am The Greatest!"