Resident's Corner

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.

Father and son psychiatrists offer the following advice, in the Oslerian spirit of honoring and guiding trainees—today’s psychiatric residents—who will become tomorrow’s psychiatric leaders.

Did you focus on CME? Inpatient psychiatry? Medication updates? Tell us-we'd like to know.

After seeing Death of a Salesman on Broadway, I knew I had seen something extraordinary—but it was only after a few days’ separation from the performance when my mind cleared and my emotions settled that I realized 2 of the reasons that made me very appreciative to see this play as a young psychiatrist.

The paradigm for modern psychiatry is evidence-based medicine (EBM)—it represents proven treatments for defined diagnoses. But there are major problems with this position, starting with the fact that while they are superior to placebo, evidence-based treatments too often are ineffective.

Agitated individuals—defined as displaying “excessive verbal and/or motor behavior”—can be loud, disruptive, hostile, sarcastic, threatening, or hyperactive, even combative. Here, Dr Zeller discusses new patient-centered interventions for agitation, endorsed as part of new, comprehensive Best Practices guidelines.

Recently our inpatient psychiatric unit moved into a brand new facility. In the months and weeks preceding “the move,” there was much preparation and nervous energy. We had been preparing our patients and ourselves for this day. “

During their time in Ayacucho, these visiting psychiatrists learned that American psychiatric training has wide-reaching cultural value.

He wasn’t the first person I met days before I was to start my psychiatric residency, but as I walked about in my new city, he caught my attention much more than most. As psychiatrists, we typically assume that we will hear the inside stories, even if in bits and pieces, that will help us better understand and help patients. But perhaps we are too expectant . . .

Each of the boys in question could meet criteria for the DSM-5 proposed criteria for Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD). But do you think that these presentations are all the same syndrome that share a similar neurobiological basis, family history, and response to treatment?

Reimbursement? Diagnostic debates? Insurance? Privacy? Ethics? What do you say?

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.

Can you name an important part of good sleep hygiene? The use of which short-acting sedative-hypnotics to treat sleep disturbances in patients is associated with Alzheimer disease? These questions and more.

A history of trauma is most uniquely related to which psychiatric disorder? Which medical comorbidities are associated with an increased risk of suicide in older adults? These questions and more.