Tag: Sediqzadah

Reading of the Week: Tweets for a Good Cause, But Suicide Prevention? Also, Racism in Mental Health (QT), and Rap & Awareness (JAMA Peds)

March 11, 2021 /

From the Editor

It’s an incredible campaign. With each passing year, Bell Let’s Talk Day gains more recognition, with many, including the Prime Minister, tweeting for a good cause.

But does the campaign affect suicide? In the first selection, we look at new paper from The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. David Côté (of the University of Toronto) and his co-authors study the tweet contents of Bell Let’s Talk Day and suicide completions. “There was no associated change in suicide counts.” We mull the big campaign and the big paper.

bird

In the second selection, we look at a new podcast that explores race and racism in mental health. In this Quick Takes episode, I’m joined by Drs. Amy Gajaria and Saadia Sediqzadah (both of the University of Toronto). “Racism exists and it exists in the lives of our patients.” The podcast covers some big topics – but it is also practical, with solid clinical advice.

And in the third selection, Alex Kresovich (of the University of North Carolina) and his co-authors wonder about the cultural discussion of mental health. To that end, they review popular rap songs in a JAMA Pediatrics paper. “The findings of this qualitative study suggest that mental health discourse has been increasing during the past 2 decades within the most popular rap music in the US.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: What Can Past Coronaviruses Teach Us? Also, Sharing Notes (Lancet Psych) & Sediqzadah on Therapy in a Digital World (Globe)

June 4, 2020 /

From the Editor

As we consider the psychiatric needs arising from COVID-19, are there lessons to be drawn from past severe coronavirus infections?

The first selection seeks to answer that question.

In The Lancet Psychiatry, Dr. Jonathan P. Rogers (of the University College London) and his co-authors do a systematic review and meta-analysis of severe coronavirus infections with a focus on psychiatric presentations. They included papers covering SARS and MERS. “This review suggests, first, that most people do not suffer from a psychiatric disorder following coronavirus infection, and second, that so far there is little to suggest that common neuropsychiatric complications beyond short-term delirium are a feature.”

sars-clinic

Should mental health notes be shared with patients? In the second selection, we look at paper from The Lancet Psychiatry. Charlotte R. Blease (of Harvard Medical School) and her co-authors champion the idea. “Sharing clinical notes in mental health settings will be more complex than in other clinical specialties; however, for most patients it will be feasible and, if carefully implemented, an empowering tool that could improve care.”

Finally, we consider an essay from The Globe and Mail. Dr. Saadia Sediqzadah (of the University of Toronto), who is graduating from her psychiatry residency this month, discusses her training and the expectation that patients “present to the clinic.” Now practicing in a COVID-19 world, she writes about psychotherapy and her patients. “What would Freud say? I care less about that as we now contend with a very different world than his. The question I ask now is, how will we go back?”

DG

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Reading of the Week: ‘Sister First, Doctor Second’ – Dr. Sediqzadah’s NEJM Paper on Her Brother and His Illness

July 11, 2019 /

From the Editor

“‘I think your brother has schizophrenia,’ she said.

“I was entering my third year of medical school when I received a phone call from my brother’s friend.”

So begins a perspective paper published in today’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. The essay is deeply moving. Written by Dr. Saadia Sediqzadah, a fifth year psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto, the author discusses her brother’s schizophrenia and her family’s efforts to get him care – for Dr. Sediqzadah, dealing with mental illness is not just part of her training.

inclusion-programs-18Saadia Sediqzadah

This week, we consider Dr. Sediqzadah’s paper.

Note that for some of our younger colleagues who have just finished their medical training and begun their specialty training in psychiatry, this week will be your first Reading. Welcome to the conversation.

DG

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