Tag: Satel

Reading of the Week: Should Police Respond to Mental Health Crises? Also, Apps & College Students (Psych Services) and the Life of DJ Jaffe (NYT)

October 1, 2020 /

From the Editor

Another tragedy, another headline.

And there have been too many. The stories differ, but there is a common thread: mental illness and a crisis, a 911 call, death. Can we do better?

In the first selection, we consider a new essay by Dr. Sally Satel (of Yale University). Dr. Satel, a psychiatrist, notes recent tragic outcomes with mental health crises. “Nationwide, a person with a psychotic illness is 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than a person without such a condition.” She wonders about an alternative to police responses.

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In the second selection, we look at apps and college students. In a Psychiatric Services paper, Jennifer Melcher and John Torous (of Harvard Medical School) review the recommendations of mental health apps of several university counselling programs. They conclude: “the findings indicated that many counseling centers are suggesting apps that are inaccessible, outdated, potentially dangerous, and without research backing.”

Finally, in our third selection, we consider The New York Times obituary for D.J. Jaffe – the title is a good summary of his life: “Ad Man Turned Mental Health Crusader.” Jaffe, whose sister-in-law has major mental illness, was a strong advocate of various mental health causes, with his influence felt on state and national legislation.

DG

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Reading of the Week: Burnout & North American Psychiatrists – the Big AJP Paper; Also, Satel on Kanye West’s Mental Illness (USA Today)

August 20, 2020 /

From the Editor

“Burnout is notoriously difficult to characterize.”

So comment the authors of a new American Journal of Psychiatry paper.

In recent years, we have been collectively speaking much more about physician burnout, but we often lack basic data. Using an online survey, Dr. Richard F. Summers (of the University of Pennsylvania) and his co-authors attempt to find out how common it is among North American psychiatrists. While there are many surveys of physicians, this one focuses on our specialty. What do they find? “Psychiatrists, like other physicians, have substantial burnout.”

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In the second selection, we look at a new essay by Dr. Sally Satel (of Yale University). Writing in USA Today, she discusses the presidential campaign of Kanye West and the unusual comments that he has made. “None of this is funny.” She notes that he has a history of mental illness, and wonders how journalists should have covered the story.

Please note that there will be no Reading next week.

DG

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Reading of the Week: Three Essays on Mental Illness

April 5, 2018 /

From the Editor

As stigma fades, we are as a society talking more and more about mental illness. And we are also writing more on the topic.

This week, the Reading features three essays that ask three provocative questions. Does naloxone access save lives? What’s it like to be depressed and in medical school? How do involuntary commitment laws affect the families of those with mental illness?

These essays are very different in part because they reflect very different perspectives on our collective experience with mental illness: the perspectives of providers, patients, and families.

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Enjoy.

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Reading of the Week: “Taking On the Scourge of Opioids” – Dr. Sally Satel’s New Essay

July 13, 2017 /

From the Editor

Today, the addicted are not inner-city minori­ties, though big cities are increasingly reporting problems. Instead, they are overwhelmingly white and rural, though middle- and upper-class individuals are also affected. The jarring visual of the crisis is not an urban ‘gang banger’ but an overdosed mom slumped in the front seat of her car in a Walmart parking lot, toddler in the back.

So writes Dr. Sally Satel, an addiction psychiatrist, about the opioid epidemic.

Dr. Satel is writing about the United States, but these problems are also seen north of the 49th parallel. Canadians remain the second highest per-capita consumers of opioids in the world; for the record, only our southern neighbours best us. And, like in the U.S., opioid use has soared in recent years – and so has misuse.

Opioids: little pills, big problems

How did we get here? And where do we go?

This week’s selection: a new essay by Dr. Satel. Drawing on the words of Nicholas Eberstadt, she describes “a new plague for a new century.” Dr. Satel writes about the roots of this drug problem and considers options moving forward.

DG

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