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The mess that is matching in psychiatry
The day I interviewed at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, like every other day of residency interviews, was a very long and draining day.
I started by meeting alone with Philip Slavney, MD, the residency director, who spoke with me about the program and gave me a schedule to follow. I was to meet with residents and psychiatrists, some of whom had graduated from my medical school, and was sent to the Bayview campus a few miles away to have lunch and attend a few meetings. By the time I boarded an Amtrak train at Baltimore Penn Station, I was tired but I liked what I had seen. By the end of the interview season, I had crossed four programs off my list and had decided to rank only three.
In 1987, there were 987 residency positions in psychiatry in the United States, and 83.6% of those positions filled with a combination of U.S. and international medical graduates. Still, this was a risky move; the programs that I decided to rank would fill, but I was matching separately for an internship year in internal medicine in New York and decided that I would rather reapply in a year than risk matching at a program I didn’t want to go to.
I wasn’t quite sure where I wanted to rank Hopkins on my list, so I called Dr. Slavney and said I wanted to come back and meet more members of the department. He did not hide his surprise and was quick to tell me that no one had ever requested a second set of interviews. I mentioned specific people I wanted to meet with, and he was kind enough to accommodate my request and set up a second day of interviews for me.
Needless to say, the residency match felt very personal – at least to me – and although I felt vulnerable, I also felt empowered. Because of the low pay, patients with stigmatized illnesses, and the rampant belief that psychiatry was not “real” medicine and the patients never got better, psychiatry was not a desired specialty.
The residency application process in psychiatry (and every other specialty) has become a much different process. In 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges called on medical schools to increase their enrollments to address the national shortage of physicians. Soon, there were more medical schools, bigger classes, and more doctors being minted, but the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 prevented a proportional increase in residency positions.
Len Marquez, senior director of government relations at the AAMC noted: “The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2021 (S. 834), sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), and Majority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), would support 2,000 additional Medicare-supported residency positions each year for 7 years, but Congress has not yet acted on the legislation. We were very pleased that last year, Congress passed the first increase in Medicare-supported graduate medical education in 25 years by including 1,000 new slots as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.”
In addition, the Build Back Better Act, which is currently being debated in Congress, would provide 4,000 more graduate medical education slots, including a specific requirement that 15% of them go to “psychiatry-related residencies,” he added.
Over 90% of graduates from U.S. medical schools currently match into a residency position. That statistic for international medical graduates is notably lower, with perhaps as few as 50% of all applicants matching.
Since 2014, the number of applicants to psychiatry residencies has nearly doubled. For the 2021 match, there were 2,486 applicants applying for 1,858 positions in psychiatry – so 1.34 applicants for each slot. Of the 1,117 senior medical students at U.S. schools who applied to psychiatry residencies, 129 did not match. Overall, 99.8% of residency positions in psychiatry filled.
“It used to be less competitive,” said Kaz J. Nelson, MD, the vice chair for education at the University of Minnesota’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in Minneapolis, adding that interest in psychiatry has increased over the years.
“Interest has skyrocketed as the word has gotten out about how great a field it is. It helps that reimbursements are better, that there is less bias and discrimination against patients with psychiatric issues, and that psychiatric care is seen as a legitimate part of medicine. It has been exciting to watch!” Dr. Nelson said.
The numbers are only one part of the story, however.
Application submission now involves a centralized, electronic process, and it has become easier for applicants to apply to a lot of programs indiscriminately. It’s not unusual for applicants to apply to 70 or more programs. The factors that have limited applications include the cost: Electronic Residency Application Services (ERAS) charges for each application package they send to a program, and applicants traditionally pay to travel to the programs where they interview. This all changed with the 2021 cycle when in-person interviews were halted for the pandemic and interviews became virtual. While I recall applying to 7 residency programs, this year the average number of applications was 54.7 per applicant.
“It used to be that the cap on interviewing was financial,” Dr. Nelson said. “It was discriminatory and favored those who had more money to travel to interviews. There are still the ERAS fees, but COVID has been an equalizer and we are getting more applicants, and interviewing more who are not from Minnesota or the Midwest. We have been working to make our program attractive in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Our hospital is located a mile from where George Floyd was murdered, and it’s our responsibility to lead the effort to ensure the psychiatry workforce is diverse, and inclusive, as possible.”
Daniel E. Gih, MD, is the program director for a new psychiatry residency at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. When the program started in 2019, there were spots for four residents and the program had 588 applications. In 2020, the program grew to five positions and this year there were 553 applicants. Dr. Gih attributed the high number of applications to his program’s strong social media presence.
“Going through the applications and meeting the students are some of the most enjoyable parts of my work,” Dr. Gih said. “I feel guilty though, that I’m likely going to miss a great applicant. Each application averages 35 pages and it’s inevitable that programs have to take shortcuts. Applicants worry that they’ll be ranked by board scores. While we certainly don’t do that here, students might feel ruled out of a program if their numbers aren’t high enough. Furthermore, wealthy students can apply to more programs. The pandemic has really highlighted the inequity issues.”
Dr. Gih noted that the Zoom interview process has not been disappointing: “Two of the people we matched had never been to Omaha, and many expressed concerns about what it is like here. Of course, on Zoom you don’t catch subtle interpersonal issues, but we have been pleasantly surprised that the people we matched were consistent with what we expected. It is exciting to meet the people who will eventually replace us as psychiatrists, they will be here to deal with future challenges!” His enthusiasm was tangible.
While the program directors remain optimistic, the system is not without its stresses, as many programs receive over 1,000 applications.
“This is difficult,” Dr. Nelson said.” It’s wonderful for the programs, but for the medical students, not matching is experienced by them as being catastrophic, so they apply to a lot of programs. Getting this many applications is a challenge, yet I don’t want to interview someone if they are going to rank our program No. 80 on their list!”
Residencies have dealt with the deluge of applicants in a number of ways. Some specialties started a “signal” protocol wherein candidates and programs receive a certain number of tokens to indicate that each would rank the other highly, but psychiatry has not done this. Early on in the Zoom process, multiple applicants would be offered interviews simultaneously, and the interview would be given to the candidate who responded first. Students vented their frustrations on Twitter when they lost interview spots at their coveted programs because they hadn’t checked their email in time or had gone to take a shower.
“The American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training Programs issued guidelines saying that it is unacceptable to offer interview spots without allowing a reasonable time for the applicant to respond, and that it is not appropriate to offer multiple candidates one spot on a first-come, first-serve basis,” Dr. Nelson explained.
Her program has managed some of the application chaos by using a software program called Scutmonkey, codeveloped by David Ross, MD, PhD, the associate program director of the Yale Adult Psychiatry Residency Program.
“It lets us screen applications for candidates who specifically are interested in being here, and for those who qualify as part of the mission we are trying to fulfill.”
One fourth-year student at a mid-Atlantic medical school who is applying in psychiatry – who I’ll call Sacha to protect his anonymity – applied to 73 psychiatry programs and to date, has interviewed at 6. He describes a stressful, roller coaster experience:
“I got those six interviews right away and that was an amazing start, but then I didn’t get any more. The interviews I had went well, but it has been disappointing not to have more. Some were all-day interviews, while other programs had me meet with residents and attendings for 20 minutes each and it was all done after 2 hours.”
He has mixed opinions about not seeing the schools in person. “There are very heavy pros and cons. I’ve saved thousands of dollars in travel expenses that would have limited my applications, so logistically it’s a dream. On the other hand, I’ve interviewed in cities I have never been to, it’s hard to get a sense of the intangibles of a program, and the shorter interviews feel very impersonal.”
Sacha expressed anxieties about the process. “With so many applicants, it’s difficult for someone with a nontraditional story to get a spot and it’s easier for the programs to toss applications. it’s common enough and everyone has seen someone who has gone through this. At times, we feel powerless; we have no real agency or control. We send stuff out and then we sit in the prayer position and wait.”
I think back on my own application process with a sense of gratitude. I certainly didn’t feel powerless, and in today’s world, postinterview communications with program directors are regulated for both parties. Dr. Slavney was kind enough to humor my request, but I don’t believe this would be feasible in the current environment.
Even though it is wonderful that more doctors have figured out that careers in psychiatry are rewarding, the current situation is overwhelming for both the applicants and the programs. With over 100 applicants for every position – many of whom will have no interest in going to some of the programs they apply to – qualified candidates who go unmatched, and a roulette wheel which requires heavily indebted students to pay to apply, this is simply not sustainable in a country with a shortage of physicians – psychiatrists in particular.
We hear that mid-level practitioners are the answer to our shortages, but perhaps we need to create a system with enough residency positions to accommodate highly trained and qualified physicians in a more inviting and targeted way.
Dinah Miller, MD, is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
The day I interviewed at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, like every other day of residency interviews, was a very long and draining day.
I started by meeting alone with Philip Slavney, MD, the residency director, who spoke with me about the program and gave me a schedule to follow. I was to meet with residents and psychiatrists, some of whom had graduated from my medical school, and was sent to the Bayview campus a few miles away to have lunch and attend a few meetings. By the time I boarded an Amtrak train at Baltimore Penn Station, I was tired but I liked what I had seen. By the end of the interview season, I had crossed four programs off my list and had decided to rank only three.
In 1987, there were 987 residency positions in psychiatry in the United States, and 83.6% of those positions filled with a combination of U.S. and international medical graduates. Still, this was a risky move; the programs that I decided to rank would fill, but I was matching separately for an internship year in internal medicine in New York and decided that I would rather reapply in a year than risk matching at a program I didn’t want to go to.
I wasn’t quite sure where I wanted to rank Hopkins on my list, so I called Dr. Slavney and said I wanted to come back and meet more members of the department. He did not hide his surprise and was quick to tell me that no one had ever requested a second set of interviews. I mentioned specific people I wanted to meet with, and he was kind enough to accommodate my request and set up a second day of interviews for me.
Needless to say, the residency match felt very personal – at least to me – and although I felt vulnerable, I also felt empowered. Because of the low pay, patients with stigmatized illnesses, and the rampant belief that psychiatry was not “real” medicine and the patients never got better, psychiatry was not a desired specialty.
The residency application process in psychiatry (and every other specialty) has become a much different process. In 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges called on medical schools to increase their enrollments to address the national shortage of physicians. Soon, there were more medical schools, bigger classes, and more doctors being minted, but the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 prevented a proportional increase in residency positions.
Len Marquez, senior director of government relations at the AAMC noted: “The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2021 (S. 834), sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), and Majority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), would support 2,000 additional Medicare-supported residency positions each year for 7 years, but Congress has not yet acted on the legislation. We were very pleased that last year, Congress passed the first increase in Medicare-supported graduate medical education in 25 years by including 1,000 new slots as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.”
In addition, the Build Back Better Act, which is currently being debated in Congress, would provide 4,000 more graduate medical education slots, including a specific requirement that 15% of them go to “psychiatry-related residencies,” he added.
Over 90% of graduates from U.S. medical schools currently match into a residency position. That statistic for international medical graduates is notably lower, with perhaps as few as 50% of all applicants matching.
Since 2014, the number of applicants to psychiatry residencies has nearly doubled. For the 2021 match, there were 2,486 applicants applying for 1,858 positions in psychiatry – so 1.34 applicants for each slot. Of the 1,117 senior medical students at U.S. schools who applied to psychiatry residencies, 129 did not match. Overall, 99.8% of residency positions in psychiatry filled.
“It used to be less competitive,” said Kaz J. Nelson, MD, the vice chair for education at the University of Minnesota’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in Minneapolis, adding that interest in psychiatry has increased over the years.
“Interest has skyrocketed as the word has gotten out about how great a field it is. It helps that reimbursements are better, that there is less bias and discrimination against patients with psychiatric issues, and that psychiatric care is seen as a legitimate part of medicine. It has been exciting to watch!” Dr. Nelson said.
The numbers are only one part of the story, however.
Application submission now involves a centralized, electronic process, and it has become easier for applicants to apply to a lot of programs indiscriminately. It’s not unusual for applicants to apply to 70 or more programs. The factors that have limited applications include the cost: Electronic Residency Application Services (ERAS) charges for each application package they send to a program, and applicants traditionally pay to travel to the programs where they interview. This all changed with the 2021 cycle when in-person interviews were halted for the pandemic and interviews became virtual. While I recall applying to 7 residency programs, this year the average number of applications was 54.7 per applicant.
“It used to be that the cap on interviewing was financial,” Dr. Nelson said. “It was discriminatory and favored those who had more money to travel to interviews. There are still the ERAS fees, but COVID has been an equalizer and we are getting more applicants, and interviewing more who are not from Minnesota or the Midwest. We have been working to make our program attractive in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Our hospital is located a mile from where George Floyd was murdered, and it’s our responsibility to lead the effort to ensure the psychiatry workforce is diverse, and inclusive, as possible.”
Daniel E. Gih, MD, is the program director for a new psychiatry residency at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. When the program started in 2019, there were spots for four residents and the program had 588 applications. In 2020, the program grew to five positions and this year there were 553 applicants. Dr. Gih attributed the high number of applications to his program’s strong social media presence.
“Going through the applications and meeting the students are some of the most enjoyable parts of my work,” Dr. Gih said. “I feel guilty though, that I’m likely going to miss a great applicant. Each application averages 35 pages and it’s inevitable that programs have to take shortcuts. Applicants worry that they’ll be ranked by board scores. While we certainly don’t do that here, students might feel ruled out of a program if their numbers aren’t high enough. Furthermore, wealthy students can apply to more programs. The pandemic has really highlighted the inequity issues.”
Dr. Gih noted that the Zoom interview process has not been disappointing: “Two of the people we matched had never been to Omaha, and many expressed concerns about what it is like here. Of course, on Zoom you don’t catch subtle interpersonal issues, but we have been pleasantly surprised that the people we matched were consistent with what we expected. It is exciting to meet the people who will eventually replace us as psychiatrists, they will be here to deal with future challenges!” His enthusiasm was tangible.
While the program directors remain optimistic, the system is not without its stresses, as many programs receive over 1,000 applications.
“This is difficult,” Dr. Nelson said.” It’s wonderful for the programs, but for the medical students, not matching is experienced by them as being catastrophic, so they apply to a lot of programs. Getting this many applications is a challenge, yet I don’t want to interview someone if they are going to rank our program No. 80 on their list!”
Residencies have dealt with the deluge of applicants in a number of ways. Some specialties started a “signal” protocol wherein candidates and programs receive a certain number of tokens to indicate that each would rank the other highly, but psychiatry has not done this. Early on in the Zoom process, multiple applicants would be offered interviews simultaneously, and the interview would be given to the candidate who responded first. Students vented their frustrations on Twitter when they lost interview spots at their coveted programs because they hadn’t checked their email in time or had gone to take a shower.
“The American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training Programs issued guidelines saying that it is unacceptable to offer interview spots without allowing a reasonable time for the applicant to respond, and that it is not appropriate to offer multiple candidates one spot on a first-come, first-serve basis,” Dr. Nelson explained.
Her program has managed some of the application chaos by using a software program called Scutmonkey, codeveloped by David Ross, MD, PhD, the associate program director of the Yale Adult Psychiatry Residency Program.
“It lets us screen applications for candidates who specifically are interested in being here, and for those who qualify as part of the mission we are trying to fulfill.”
One fourth-year student at a mid-Atlantic medical school who is applying in psychiatry – who I’ll call Sacha to protect his anonymity – applied to 73 psychiatry programs and to date, has interviewed at 6. He describes a stressful, roller coaster experience:
“I got those six interviews right away and that was an amazing start, but then I didn’t get any more. The interviews I had went well, but it has been disappointing not to have more. Some were all-day interviews, while other programs had me meet with residents and attendings for 20 minutes each and it was all done after 2 hours.”
He has mixed opinions about not seeing the schools in person. “There are very heavy pros and cons. I’ve saved thousands of dollars in travel expenses that would have limited my applications, so logistically it’s a dream. On the other hand, I’ve interviewed in cities I have never been to, it’s hard to get a sense of the intangibles of a program, and the shorter interviews feel very impersonal.”
Sacha expressed anxieties about the process. “With so many applicants, it’s difficult for someone with a nontraditional story to get a spot and it’s easier for the programs to toss applications. it’s common enough and everyone has seen someone who has gone through this. At times, we feel powerless; we have no real agency or control. We send stuff out and then we sit in the prayer position and wait.”
I think back on my own application process with a sense of gratitude. I certainly didn’t feel powerless, and in today’s world, postinterview communications with program directors are regulated for both parties. Dr. Slavney was kind enough to humor my request, but I don’t believe this would be feasible in the current environment.
Even though it is wonderful that more doctors have figured out that careers in psychiatry are rewarding, the current situation is overwhelming for both the applicants and the programs. With over 100 applicants for every position – many of whom will have no interest in going to some of the programs they apply to – qualified candidates who go unmatched, and a roulette wheel which requires heavily indebted students to pay to apply, this is simply not sustainable in a country with a shortage of physicians – psychiatrists in particular.
We hear that mid-level practitioners are the answer to our shortages, but perhaps we need to create a system with enough residency positions to accommodate highly trained and qualified physicians in a more inviting and targeted way.
Dinah Miller, MD, is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
The day I interviewed at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, like every other day of residency interviews, was a very long and draining day.
I started by meeting alone with Philip Slavney, MD, the residency director, who spoke with me about the program and gave me a schedule to follow. I was to meet with residents and psychiatrists, some of whom had graduated from my medical school, and was sent to the Bayview campus a few miles away to have lunch and attend a few meetings. By the time I boarded an Amtrak train at Baltimore Penn Station, I was tired but I liked what I had seen. By the end of the interview season, I had crossed four programs off my list and had decided to rank only three.
In 1987, there were 987 residency positions in psychiatry in the United States, and 83.6% of those positions filled with a combination of U.S. and international medical graduates. Still, this was a risky move; the programs that I decided to rank would fill, but I was matching separately for an internship year in internal medicine in New York and decided that I would rather reapply in a year than risk matching at a program I didn’t want to go to.
I wasn’t quite sure where I wanted to rank Hopkins on my list, so I called Dr. Slavney and said I wanted to come back and meet more members of the department. He did not hide his surprise and was quick to tell me that no one had ever requested a second set of interviews. I mentioned specific people I wanted to meet with, and he was kind enough to accommodate my request and set up a second day of interviews for me.
Needless to say, the residency match felt very personal – at least to me – and although I felt vulnerable, I also felt empowered. Because of the low pay, patients with stigmatized illnesses, and the rampant belief that psychiatry was not “real” medicine and the patients never got better, psychiatry was not a desired specialty.
The residency application process in psychiatry (and every other specialty) has become a much different process. In 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges called on medical schools to increase their enrollments to address the national shortage of physicians. Soon, there were more medical schools, bigger classes, and more doctors being minted, but the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 prevented a proportional increase in residency positions.
Len Marquez, senior director of government relations at the AAMC noted: “The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2021 (S. 834), sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), and Majority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), would support 2,000 additional Medicare-supported residency positions each year for 7 years, but Congress has not yet acted on the legislation. We were very pleased that last year, Congress passed the first increase in Medicare-supported graduate medical education in 25 years by including 1,000 new slots as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.”
In addition, the Build Back Better Act, which is currently being debated in Congress, would provide 4,000 more graduate medical education slots, including a specific requirement that 15% of them go to “psychiatry-related residencies,” he added.
Over 90% of graduates from U.S. medical schools currently match into a residency position. That statistic for international medical graduates is notably lower, with perhaps as few as 50% of all applicants matching.
Since 2014, the number of applicants to psychiatry residencies has nearly doubled. For the 2021 match, there were 2,486 applicants applying for 1,858 positions in psychiatry – so 1.34 applicants for each slot. Of the 1,117 senior medical students at U.S. schools who applied to psychiatry residencies, 129 did not match. Overall, 99.8% of residency positions in psychiatry filled.
“It used to be less competitive,” said Kaz J. Nelson, MD, the vice chair for education at the University of Minnesota’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in Minneapolis, adding that interest in psychiatry has increased over the years.
“Interest has skyrocketed as the word has gotten out about how great a field it is. It helps that reimbursements are better, that there is less bias and discrimination against patients with psychiatric issues, and that psychiatric care is seen as a legitimate part of medicine. It has been exciting to watch!” Dr. Nelson said.
The numbers are only one part of the story, however.
Application submission now involves a centralized, electronic process, and it has become easier for applicants to apply to a lot of programs indiscriminately. It’s not unusual for applicants to apply to 70 or more programs. The factors that have limited applications include the cost: Electronic Residency Application Services (ERAS) charges for each application package they send to a program, and applicants traditionally pay to travel to the programs where they interview. This all changed with the 2021 cycle when in-person interviews were halted for the pandemic and interviews became virtual. While I recall applying to 7 residency programs, this year the average number of applications was 54.7 per applicant.
“It used to be that the cap on interviewing was financial,” Dr. Nelson said. “It was discriminatory and favored those who had more money to travel to interviews. There are still the ERAS fees, but COVID has been an equalizer and we are getting more applicants, and interviewing more who are not from Minnesota or the Midwest. We have been working to make our program attractive in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Our hospital is located a mile from where George Floyd was murdered, and it’s our responsibility to lead the effort to ensure the psychiatry workforce is diverse, and inclusive, as possible.”
Daniel E. Gih, MD, is the program director for a new psychiatry residency at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. When the program started in 2019, there were spots for four residents and the program had 588 applications. In 2020, the program grew to five positions and this year there were 553 applicants. Dr. Gih attributed the high number of applications to his program’s strong social media presence.
“Going through the applications and meeting the students are some of the most enjoyable parts of my work,” Dr. Gih said. “I feel guilty though, that I’m likely going to miss a great applicant. Each application averages 35 pages and it’s inevitable that programs have to take shortcuts. Applicants worry that they’ll be ranked by board scores. While we certainly don’t do that here, students might feel ruled out of a program if their numbers aren’t high enough. Furthermore, wealthy students can apply to more programs. The pandemic has really highlighted the inequity issues.”
Dr. Gih noted that the Zoom interview process has not been disappointing: “Two of the people we matched had never been to Omaha, and many expressed concerns about what it is like here. Of course, on Zoom you don’t catch subtle interpersonal issues, but we have been pleasantly surprised that the people we matched were consistent with what we expected. It is exciting to meet the people who will eventually replace us as psychiatrists, they will be here to deal with future challenges!” His enthusiasm was tangible.
While the program directors remain optimistic, the system is not without its stresses, as many programs receive over 1,000 applications.
“This is difficult,” Dr. Nelson said.” It’s wonderful for the programs, but for the medical students, not matching is experienced by them as being catastrophic, so they apply to a lot of programs. Getting this many applications is a challenge, yet I don’t want to interview someone if they are going to rank our program No. 80 on their list!”
Residencies have dealt with the deluge of applicants in a number of ways. Some specialties started a “signal” protocol wherein candidates and programs receive a certain number of tokens to indicate that each would rank the other highly, but psychiatry has not done this. Early on in the Zoom process, multiple applicants would be offered interviews simultaneously, and the interview would be given to the candidate who responded first. Students vented their frustrations on Twitter when they lost interview spots at their coveted programs because they hadn’t checked their email in time or had gone to take a shower.
“The American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training Programs issued guidelines saying that it is unacceptable to offer interview spots without allowing a reasonable time for the applicant to respond, and that it is not appropriate to offer multiple candidates one spot on a first-come, first-serve basis,” Dr. Nelson explained.
Her program has managed some of the application chaos by using a software program called Scutmonkey, codeveloped by David Ross, MD, PhD, the associate program director of the Yale Adult Psychiatry Residency Program.
“It lets us screen applications for candidates who specifically are interested in being here, and for those who qualify as part of the mission we are trying to fulfill.”
One fourth-year student at a mid-Atlantic medical school who is applying in psychiatry – who I’ll call Sacha to protect his anonymity – applied to 73 psychiatry programs and to date, has interviewed at 6. He describes a stressful, roller coaster experience:
“I got those six interviews right away and that was an amazing start, but then I didn’t get any more. The interviews I had went well, but it has been disappointing not to have more. Some were all-day interviews, while other programs had me meet with residents and attendings for 20 minutes each and it was all done after 2 hours.”
He has mixed opinions about not seeing the schools in person. “There are very heavy pros and cons. I’ve saved thousands of dollars in travel expenses that would have limited my applications, so logistically it’s a dream. On the other hand, I’ve interviewed in cities I have never been to, it’s hard to get a sense of the intangibles of a program, and the shorter interviews feel very impersonal.”
Sacha expressed anxieties about the process. “With so many applicants, it’s difficult for someone with a nontraditional story to get a spot and it’s easier for the programs to toss applications. it’s common enough and everyone has seen someone who has gone through this. At times, we feel powerless; we have no real agency or control. We send stuff out and then we sit in the prayer position and wait.”
I think back on my own application process with a sense of gratitude. I certainly didn’t feel powerless, and in today’s world, postinterview communications with program directors are regulated for both parties. Dr. Slavney was kind enough to humor my request, but I don’t believe this would be feasible in the current environment.
Even though it is wonderful that more doctors have figured out that careers in psychiatry are rewarding, the current situation is overwhelming for both the applicants and the programs. With over 100 applicants for every position – many of whom will have no interest in going to some of the programs they apply to – qualified candidates who go unmatched, and a roulette wheel which requires heavily indebted students to pay to apply, this is simply not sustainable in a country with a shortage of physicians – psychiatrists in particular.
We hear that mid-level practitioners are the answer to our shortages, but perhaps we need to create a system with enough residency positions to accommodate highly trained and qualified physicians in a more inviting and targeted way.
Dinah Miller, MD, is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
When should psychiatrists retire?
I remember a conversation I had at the end of my training with an older psychiatrist who was closing his practice. I was very excited to finally be a psychiatrist, and therefore a bit shocked that someone would voluntarily end a career I was just beginning. After all, psychiatry is a field where people can practice with flexibility, and a private practice is not an all-or-none endeavor.
“Dinah,” this gentleman said to me, sensing my dismay, “I’m 74. I’m allowed to retire.”
Like many retired psychiatrists, this one continued to come to grand rounds every Monday, dressed in a suit, which was followed by lunch with friends in the dining room. He continued to be involved in professional activities and lived to be 96.
Another dear friend practiced psychiatry until she entered hospice after a 2-year battle with cancer. Others have whittled down their practices, hanging on to a few hours of patient care along with supervision, teaching, and involvement with professional organizations.
In discussing retirement with some of my peers, it’s become immediately clear that each psychiatrist approaches this decision – and how they choose to live after it’s made – with a unique set of concerns and goals.
Fatigued by bureaucracy
Robin Weiss, MD, is in the process of “shrinking” her private practice. She is quick to say she is not retiring, but planning to scale back to 1 day a week starting next summer.
“I want to work less so I have more time for my grandchildren, friends, and travel, and to finally write more.” She also hopes to improve her ping-pong game and exercise habits.
“I’m so tired of prior authorizations, and the one day a week of patients I’ve been committed to feels just about right.”
During the pandemic, Dr. Weiss relinquished her office and she plans to continue with a virtual practice, which allows her more flexibility in terms of where she is physically located.
“The pandemic didn’t influence my decision to scale back, but it did play a role in deciding to give up my office,” she said.
A decision precipitated by medical reasons
Stephen Warres, MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Maryland who fully retired from practice in June 2021. He started scaling back a few years ago, when he had to give up his office because the building was undergoing renovations.
“I was seeing some patients from my home, but for 2 years I had been working 1 or 2 weekends a month at the Baltimore city jail, and I thought of that as my final act. It was a setting I had never worked in, and I left there 4 months before the pandemic started.”
Dr. Warres noted that his decision to retire was propelled by his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease at the end of 2019.
“So far I only have a resting tremor, but this is an illness in which cognitive decline is a possibility.”
The emotional roller-coaster that can await
“Why am I leaving when others practice longer? I read about a psychiatrist in California who was still practicing when he died at 102. And the last patient whom I saw when I left practice was a man I started treating just 2 days after I started residency in 1976! When I told him I would be retiring, he found a new psychiatrist who is 82 years old.”
This was followed, he said, by a sense of shame.
“My father was a radiologist and he retired at 76, the same age that I am now, but he volunteered 2 days a week for the state attorney’s office until he was 92, and I’m not doing that.”
What Dr. Warres is choosing to do instead is indulge his many interests, including reading; writing; and practicing on the instrument he’s recently taken up, the harmonium.
This cascade of emotions led to one that was arguably more pleasurable: a sense of immense relief.
“When I got my first request after retirement for a prior authorization, I felt jubilant, like I wanted to throw a party! I felt like I had been walking with a backpack full of weights, and only after the weights were removed did I realize how much lighter it was.
“I loved doing psychotherapy, but more and more psychiatry was not what I had signed up for. I’m relieved that I no longer have to keep up with psychopharmacology. In a way, the Parkinson’s diagnosis sealed the deal. I felt that it gave me license, like a get out of jail card, to retire.”
But even this sense of palpable relief hasn’t closed the cycle of emotions Dr. Warres is experiencing over his retirement.
“You know, the more relieved I am, the more guilt I feel.”
As intellectually adventurous as ever
Marshal Folstein, MD, of Miami retired over a decade ago after a long academic career at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and as chairman of psychiatry at Tufts University, Boston. His Facebook profile states: “Leading the quiet life of a retired professor.”
He said retirement was an easy decision for he and his wife Susan, herself a former academic psychiatrist, which allowed them to immediately change gears.
“At the beginning, we traveled a bit. I wanted to continue with music, so I took flute lessons, and then I played flute in my synagogue, so now I have recently retired from that. I spend my time reading Talmud and the Bible and I keep asking questions. I found a new group of people, some are physicians, and we study and argue. I just turned 80 and I’m intellectually busy and happy.”
The retirement coach
Barbara Fowler, PhD, is a lifespan services consultant at Johns Hopkins who works with faculty and staff getting ready to retire. She said that the university has methods in place to make this decision less jarring.
“The school of medicine has a faculty transition plan that lets people cut back over a set period of time while still keeping benefits. It gives doctors a way to wind up their research and clinical responsibilities, and this is negotiated on an individual level.”
When she’s discussing with someone the possibility of retirement, Dr. Fowler likes to begin by asking them to define what exactly they mean by that word.
“The stereotyped concept is that someone stops what they are doing completely and spends their time playing golf or canasta,” she said. “But the baby boomers are redefining that. Physicians often continue to see some patients or participate in professional organizations. Some people are happy to stop doing the work they have done for years and go do something different, whereas others are interested in scaling back on work activities while adding new ones.”
Timing it right
So, when should psychiatrists retire? The most obvious time to reconsider is when the doctor is no longer able to perform work-related obligations owing to physical or cognitive limitations.
Financial constraints are another factor that comes into play. How necessary is it to work to pay the bills?
“When the kids are out of college and the mortgage is paid off, then there may be the financial means to reconceptualize work life and how you want to rebuild it,” Dr. Fowler said. “Because whether or not people are getting paid, they want to be productive.”
For some, this may come in the form of working in a reduced capacity. Certain practices are more amenable to part-time work or a gradual decrease in hours. A private practice may allow for more control than a position with an institution where an employee may have to continue working full time or not at all.
For others, that productivity might be measured in pursuing their own interests or assisting with family members who need their help. Grandchildren can be an important factor, especially if they live at a distance or childcare is needed. These issues became all the more salient when the pandemic shuttered day care centers and schools, and people limited contact with those outside their households.
Retirement for all physicians is wrapped in issues of identity; for those who have not cultivated other interests, retirement can be a huge loss with no clear path forward. And in an environment where there is a psychiatrist shortage, health care workers are deemed heroes, and human distress is mounting, retirement may come with mixed feelings of guilt, even when the psychiatrist wants a change and is ready for the next chapter. Finally, for those who have launched programs or research projects, there may be the fear that there is no one else who can or will carry on, and that all will be lost.
Yet these considerations focus on the negative, whereas Dr. Fowler said she likes to frame retirement in a positive light. “The key is having more choices; looking for activities that inspire passion; and asking, how can you live your best life?”
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
I remember a conversation I had at the end of my training with an older psychiatrist who was closing his practice. I was very excited to finally be a psychiatrist, and therefore a bit shocked that someone would voluntarily end a career I was just beginning. After all, psychiatry is a field where people can practice with flexibility, and a private practice is not an all-or-none endeavor.
“Dinah,” this gentleman said to me, sensing my dismay, “I’m 74. I’m allowed to retire.”
Like many retired psychiatrists, this one continued to come to grand rounds every Monday, dressed in a suit, which was followed by lunch with friends in the dining room. He continued to be involved in professional activities and lived to be 96.
Another dear friend practiced psychiatry until she entered hospice after a 2-year battle with cancer. Others have whittled down their practices, hanging on to a few hours of patient care along with supervision, teaching, and involvement with professional organizations.
In discussing retirement with some of my peers, it’s become immediately clear that each psychiatrist approaches this decision – and how they choose to live after it’s made – with a unique set of concerns and goals.
Fatigued by bureaucracy
Robin Weiss, MD, is in the process of “shrinking” her private practice. She is quick to say she is not retiring, but planning to scale back to 1 day a week starting next summer.
“I want to work less so I have more time for my grandchildren, friends, and travel, and to finally write more.” She also hopes to improve her ping-pong game and exercise habits.
“I’m so tired of prior authorizations, and the one day a week of patients I’ve been committed to feels just about right.”
During the pandemic, Dr. Weiss relinquished her office and she plans to continue with a virtual practice, which allows her more flexibility in terms of where she is physically located.
“The pandemic didn’t influence my decision to scale back, but it did play a role in deciding to give up my office,” she said.
A decision precipitated by medical reasons
Stephen Warres, MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Maryland who fully retired from practice in June 2021. He started scaling back a few years ago, when he had to give up his office because the building was undergoing renovations.
“I was seeing some patients from my home, but for 2 years I had been working 1 or 2 weekends a month at the Baltimore city jail, and I thought of that as my final act. It was a setting I had never worked in, and I left there 4 months before the pandemic started.”
Dr. Warres noted that his decision to retire was propelled by his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease at the end of 2019.
“So far I only have a resting tremor, but this is an illness in which cognitive decline is a possibility.”
The emotional roller-coaster that can await
“Why am I leaving when others practice longer? I read about a psychiatrist in California who was still practicing when he died at 102. And the last patient whom I saw when I left practice was a man I started treating just 2 days after I started residency in 1976! When I told him I would be retiring, he found a new psychiatrist who is 82 years old.”
This was followed, he said, by a sense of shame.
“My father was a radiologist and he retired at 76, the same age that I am now, but he volunteered 2 days a week for the state attorney’s office until he was 92, and I’m not doing that.”
What Dr. Warres is choosing to do instead is indulge his many interests, including reading; writing; and practicing on the instrument he’s recently taken up, the harmonium.
This cascade of emotions led to one that was arguably more pleasurable: a sense of immense relief.
“When I got my first request after retirement for a prior authorization, I felt jubilant, like I wanted to throw a party! I felt like I had been walking with a backpack full of weights, and only after the weights were removed did I realize how much lighter it was.
“I loved doing psychotherapy, but more and more psychiatry was not what I had signed up for. I’m relieved that I no longer have to keep up with psychopharmacology. In a way, the Parkinson’s diagnosis sealed the deal. I felt that it gave me license, like a get out of jail card, to retire.”
But even this sense of palpable relief hasn’t closed the cycle of emotions Dr. Warres is experiencing over his retirement.
“You know, the more relieved I am, the more guilt I feel.”
As intellectually adventurous as ever
Marshal Folstein, MD, of Miami retired over a decade ago after a long academic career at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and as chairman of psychiatry at Tufts University, Boston. His Facebook profile states: “Leading the quiet life of a retired professor.”
He said retirement was an easy decision for he and his wife Susan, herself a former academic psychiatrist, which allowed them to immediately change gears.
“At the beginning, we traveled a bit. I wanted to continue with music, so I took flute lessons, and then I played flute in my synagogue, so now I have recently retired from that. I spend my time reading Talmud and the Bible and I keep asking questions. I found a new group of people, some are physicians, and we study and argue. I just turned 80 and I’m intellectually busy and happy.”
The retirement coach
Barbara Fowler, PhD, is a lifespan services consultant at Johns Hopkins who works with faculty and staff getting ready to retire. She said that the university has methods in place to make this decision less jarring.
“The school of medicine has a faculty transition plan that lets people cut back over a set period of time while still keeping benefits. It gives doctors a way to wind up their research and clinical responsibilities, and this is negotiated on an individual level.”
When she’s discussing with someone the possibility of retirement, Dr. Fowler likes to begin by asking them to define what exactly they mean by that word.
“The stereotyped concept is that someone stops what they are doing completely and spends their time playing golf or canasta,” she said. “But the baby boomers are redefining that. Physicians often continue to see some patients or participate in professional organizations. Some people are happy to stop doing the work they have done for years and go do something different, whereas others are interested in scaling back on work activities while adding new ones.”
Timing it right
So, when should psychiatrists retire? The most obvious time to reconsider is when the doctor is no longer able to perform work-related obligations owing to physical or cognitive limitations.
Financial constraints are another factor that comes into play. How necessary is it to work to pay the bills?
“When the kids are out of college and the mortgage is paid off, then there may be the financial means to reconceptualize work life and how you want to rebuild it,” Dr. Fowler said. “Because whether or not people are getting paid, they want to be productive.”
For some, this may come in the form of working in a reduced capacity. Certain practices are more amenable to part-time work or a gradual decrease in hours. A private practice may allow for more control than a position with an institution where an employee may have to continue working full time or not at all.
For others, that productivity might be measured in pursuing their own interests or assisting with family members who need their help. Grandchildren can be an important factor, especially if they live at a distance or childcare is needed. These issues became all the more salient when the pandemic shuttered day care centers and schools, and people limited contact with those outside their households.
Retirement for all physicians is wrapped in issues of identity; for those who have not cultivated other interests, retirement can be a huge loss with no clear path forward. And in an environment where there is a psychiatrist shortage, health care workers are deemed heroes, and human distress is mounting, retirement may come with mixed feelings of guilt, even when the psychiatrist wants a change and is ready for the next chapter. Finally, for those who have launched programs or research projects, there may be the fear that there is no one else who can or will carry on, and that all will be lost.
Yet these considerations focus on the negative, whereas Dr. Fowler said she likes to frame retirement in a positive light. “The key is having more choices; looking for activities that inspire passion; and asking, how can you live your best life?”
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
I remember a conversation I had at the end of my training with an older psychiatrist who was closing his practice. I was very excited to finally be a psychiatrist, and therefore a bit shocked that someone would voluntarily end a career I was just beginning. After all, psychiatry is a field where people can practice with flexibility, and a private practice is not an all-or-none endeavor.
“Dinah,” this gentleman said to me, sensing my dismay, “I’m 74. I’m allowed to retire.”
Like many retired psychiatrists, this one continued to come to grand rounds every Monday, dressed in a suit, which was followed by lunch with friends in the dining room. He continued to be involved in professional activities and lived to be 96.
Another dear friend practiced psychiatry until she entered hospice after a 2-year battle with cancer. Others have whittled down their practices, hanging on to a few hours of patient care along with supervision, teaching, and involvement with professional organizations.
In discussing retirement with some of my peers, it’s become immediately clear that each psychiatrist approaches this decision – and how they choose to live after it’s made – with a unique set of concerns and goals.
Fatigued by bureaucracy
Robin Weiss, MD, is in the process of “shrinking” her private practice. She is quick to say she is not retiring, but planning to scale back to 1 day a week starting next summer.
“I want to work less so I have more time for my grandchildren, friends, and travel, and to finally write more.” She also hopes to improve her ping-pong game and exercise habits.
“I’m so tired of prior authorizations, and the one day a week of patients I’ve been committed to feels just about right.”
During the pandemic, Dr. Weiss relinquished her office and she plans to continue with a virtual practice, which allows her more flexibility in terms of where she is physically located.
“The pandemic didn’t influence my decision to scale back, but it did play a role in deciding to give up my office,” she said.
A decision precipitated by medical reasons
Stephen Warres, MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Maryland who fully retired from practice in June 2021. He started scaling back a few years ago, when he had to give up his office because the building was undergoing renovations.
“I was seeing some patients from my home, but for 2 years I had been working 1 or 2 weekends a month at the Baltimore city jail, and I thought of that as my final act. It was a setting I had never worked in, and I left there 4 months before the pandemic started.”
Dr. Warres noted that his decision to retire was propelled by his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease at the end of 2019.
“So far I only have a resting tremor, but this is an illness in which cognitive decline is a possibility.”
The emotional roller-coaster that can await
“Why am I leaving when others practice longer? I read about a psychiatrist in California who was still practicing when he died at 102. And the last patient whom I saw when I left practice was a man I started treating just 2 days after I started residency in 1976! When I told him I would be retiring, he found a new psychiatrist who is 82 years old.”
This was followed, he said, by a sense of shame.
“My father was a radiologist and he retired at 76, the same age that I am now, but he volunteered 2 days a week for the state attorney’s office until he was 92, and I’m not doing that.”
What Dr. Warres is choosing to do instead is indulge his many interests, including reading; writing; and practicing on the instrument he’s recently taken up, the harmonium.
This cascade of emotions led to one that was arguably more pleasurable: a sense of immense relief.
“When I got my first request after retirement for a prior authorization, I felt jubilant, like I wanted to throw a party! I felt like I had been walking with a backpack full of weights, and only after the weights were removed did I realize how much lighter it was.
“I loved doing psychotherapy, but more and more psychiatry was not what I had signed up for. I’m relieved that I no longer have to keep up with psychopharmacology. In a way, the Parkinson’s diagnosis sealed the deal. I felt that it gave me license, like a get out of jail card, to retire.”
But even this sense of palpable relief hasn’t closed the cycle of emotions Dr. Warres is experiencing over his retirement.
“You know, the more relieved I am, the more guilt I feel.”
As intellectually adventurous as ever
Marshal Folstein, MD, of Miami retired over a decade ago after a long academic career at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and as chairman of psychiatry at Tufts University, Boston. His Facebook profile states: “Leading the quiet life of a retired professor.”
He said retirement was an easy decision for he and his wife Susan, herself a former academic psychiatrist, which allowed them to immediately change gears.
“At the beginning, we traveled a bit. I wanted to continue with music, so I took flute lessons, and then I played flute in my synagogue, so now I have recently retired from that. I spend my time reading Talmud and the Bible and I keep asking questions. I found a new group of people, some are physicians, and we study and argue. I just turned 80 and I’m intellectually busy and happy.”
The retirement coach
Barbara Fowler, PhD, is a lifespan services consultant at Johns Hopkins who works with faculty and staff getting ready to retire. She said that the university has methods in place to make this decision less jarring.
“The school of medicine has a faculty transition plan that lets people cut back over a set period of time while still keeping benefits. It gives doctors a way to wind up their research and clinical responsibilities, and this is negotiated on an individual level.”
When she’s discussing with someone the possibility of retirement, Dr. Fowler likes to begin by asking them to define what exactly they mean by that word.
“The stereotyped concept is that someone stops what they are doing completely and spends their time playing golf or canasta,” she said. “But the baby boomers are redefining that. Physicians often continue to see some patients or participate in professional organizations. Some people are happy to stop doing the work they have done for years and go do something different, whereas others are interested in scaling back on work activities while adding new ones.”
Timing it right
So, when should psychiatrists retire? The most obvious time to reconsider is when the doctor is no longer able to perform work-related obligations owing to physical or cognitive limitations.
Financial constraints are another factor that comes into play. How necessary is it to work to pay the bills?
“When the kids are out of college and the mortgage is paid off, then there may be the financial means to reconceptualize work life and how you want to rebuild it,” Dr. Fowler said. “Because whether or not people are getting paid, they want to be productive.”
For some, this may come in the form of working in a reduced capacity. Certain practices are more amenable to part-time work or a gradual decrease in hours. A private practice may allow for more control than a position with an institution where an employee may have to continue working full time or not at all.
For others, that productivity might be measured in pursuing their own interests or assisting with family members who need their help. Grandchildren can be an important factor, especially if they live at a distance or childcare is needed. These issues became all the more salient when the pandemic shuttered day care centers and schools, and people limited contact with those outside their households.
Retirement for all physicians is wrapped in issues of identity; for those who have not cultivated other interests, retirement can be a huge loss with no clear path forward. And in an environment where there is a psychiatrist shortage, health care workers are deemed heroes, and human distress is mounting, retirement may come with mixed feelings of guilt, even when the psychiatrist wants a change and is ready for the next chapter. Finally, for those who have launched programs or research projects, there may be the fear that there is no one else who can or will carry on, and that all will be lost.
Yet these considerations focus on the negative, whereas Dr. Fowler said she likes to frame retirement in a positive light. “The key is having more choices; looking for activities that inspire passion; and asking, how can you live your best life?”
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
But I am the therapist!
Dr. Smith’s patient, Anna, was struggling. Her mother, with whom she lived, had died, her boyfriend had broken up with her, her teenagers were being difficult, and her anxiety about catching COVID left her isolated and lonely.
She was working in psychotherapy and a number of medications had been tried, but when Anna suggested that her children might be better off without her, Dr. Smith referred her to an inpatient unit at a local hospital for admission. He faxed over the clinical and demographic information that the hospital wanted, and he never heard a word from the inpatient unit until Anna texted him that she had been discharged. She noted that the hospitalization had been helpful.
“I have an appointment next week with a therapist,” Anna texted.
Dr. Smith was puzzled and he conveyed that in his response to her.
“They told me that you are the psychiatrist and I should see you once a month and that I need a therapist to see weekly.”
Dr. Smith remained puzzled. At times he had seen Anna weekly, and he always saw her for 50-minute (or longer) sessions, but he realized that the person in charge of discharge had decided that psychiatrists are not psychotherapists. As a psychiatrist who sees patients for psychotherapy, Dr. Smith was not in Anna’s health insurance plan, and perhaps the hospital discharged people to see in-network clinicians. Or perhaps they thought that if he were a better psychiatrist, his patient would not need an inpatient admission. All he could do was surmise, but clearly ; they had changed Anna’s treatment without the courtesy of a phone call.
“This happens to me all the time,” said Sally Waddington, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice in Laurel, Md. “Hospitals will tell my patients that psychiatrists are for medications and they need a separate therapist. It really undermines the treatment.”
Ramin Mojtabai, MD, PhD, MPH, is a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He has done research on trends in psychotherapy among psychiatrists and in 2008 published a study which showed that only 10.8% of psychiatrists see all of their patients for psychotherapy. The same data, however, revealed that 59.4% – or a majority – of psychiatrists see at least some of their patients for psychotherapy.
“Unfortunately, our profession has been defined by the insurance industry for decades,” Dr. Mojtabai said in an interview, “so, I am not surprised that the patient was told to see a ‘proper’ psychotherapist.”
George Dawson, MD, spent 22 years as a psychiatrist on an inpatient unit in Minnesota. On his blog, “Real Psychiatry,” Dr. Dawson has a lengthy post dated Oct. 3, 2021, titled “The problem with inpatient units.” Dr. Dawson writes, “There is a lack of collaboration with outpatient staff: Good inpatient care proceeds from the assumption that the main focus of treatment is with the primary psychiatrist or treatment team. ... The only acceptable reasons are that the patient does not have outpatient care, the patient refuses to consent to the communication, or the outpatient physician or their proxy cannot be contacted with a good faith effort. Being on both ends of that call – a good faith effort to me means leaving a cell phone number with the message to ‘call me at any time.’ I have found that effort is required in an era of overproduction and no set times in the outpatient clinic for necessary phone calls.”
In an interview, Dr. Dawson commented on the predicament of Dr. Smith and Anna. “The inpatient staff seem to have a grandiose idea of where the care should be centered and that is with the outpatient doctor making the referral. Any plan not involving the referring doctor is not likely to be successful.”
Dr. Waddington talked about how she handles the situation when an inpatient unit refers her patients to a separate psychotherapist. “Usually, I discuss it with my patient. Sometimes they want a change and so I continue to see them for medications. Most of the time, they keep seeing me for therapy.” She went on to note, “I recently had a patient who was in the hospital and was referred to a trauma specialist for therapy. The referral was probably appropriate in her case; I just wish they had discussed this with me first.”
Dr. Smith calls himself “a dinosaur” – he likes treating patients with a combination of medications and psychotherapy and he does not enjoy seeing patients for brief visits for medication management. He was, however, concerned that Anna had been stretching out the time between sessions because of financial concerns, so he suggested she could meet with the therapist and see if she thought this might be helpful to her. If it was, he recommended she find a psychiatrist in her insurance network to prescribe her medications, with the hope that this would be a reasonable alternative to their current conundrum.
“I believe that many patients are best served by having their care come from a single psychiatrist and not treatment split between clinicians; however, I recognize that this is not always financially the best option. Anna might benefit from not having the financial stress of care from a psychiatrist where she is not reimbursed as well – if at all – by insurance. Still, I am annoyed; it feels like the inpatient team decided to write a new job description for me and to dictate through my patient how it is I should be practicing. And after they implied that I was not the best therapist for her, they hijacked her and sent her to someone who may well have much less experience than I do.”
In the clinical care of any patient, communication between the inpatient team and the outpatient physician is essential, and all too often, this doesn’t happen.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore.
Dr. Smith’s patient, Anna, was struggling. Her mother, with whom she lived, had died, her boyfriend had broken up with her, her teenagers were being difficult, and her anxiety about catching COVID left her isolated and lonely.
She was working in psychotherapy and a number of medications had been tried, but when Anna suggested that her children might be better off without her, Dr. Smith referred her to an inpatient unit at a local hospital for admission. He faxed over the clinical and demographic information that the hospital wanted, and he never heard a word from the inpatient unit until Anna texted him that she had been discharged. She noted that the hospitalization had been helpful.
“I have an appointment next week with a therapist,” Anna texted.
Dr. Smith was puzzled and he conveyed that in his response to her.
“They told me that you are the psychiatrist and I should see you once a month and that I need a therapist to see weekly.”
Dr. Smith remained puzzled. At times he had seen Anna weekly, and he always saw her for 50-minute (or longer) sessions, but he realized that the person in charge of discharge had decided that psychiatrists are not psychotherapists. As a psychiatrist who sees patients for psychotherapy, Dr. Smith was not in Anna’s health insurance plan, and perhaps the hospital discharged people to see in-network clinicians. Or perhaps they thought that if he were a better psychiatrist, his patient would not need an inpatient admission. All he could do was surmise, but clearly ; they had changed Anna’s treatment without the courtesy of a phone call.
“This happens to me all the time,” said Sally Waddington, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice in Laurel, Md. “Hospitals will tell my patients that psychiatrists are for medications and they need a separate therapist. It really undermines the treatment.”
Ramin Mojtabai, MD, PhD, MPH, is a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He has done research on trends in psychotherapy among psychiatrists and in 2008 published a study which showed that only 10.8% of psychiatrists see all of their patients for psychotherapy. The same data, however, revealed that 59.4% – or a majority – of psychiatrists see at least some of their patients for psychotherapy.
“Unfortunately, our profession has been defined by the insurance industry for decades,” Dr. Mojtabai said in an interview, “so, I am not surprised that the patient was told to see a ‘proper’ psychotherapist.”
George Dawson, MD, spent 22 years as a psychiatrist on an inpatient unit in Minnesota. On his blog, “Real Psychiatry,” Dr. Dawson has a lengthy post dated Oct. 3, 2021, titled “The problem with inpatient units.” Dr. Dawson writes, “There is a lack of collaboration with outpatient staff: Good inpatient care proceeds from the assumption that the main focus of treatment is with the primary psychiatrist or treatment team. ... The only acceptable reasons are that the patient does not have outpatient care, the patient refuses to consent to the communication, or the outpatient physician or their proxy cannot be contacted with a good faith effort. Being on both ends of that call – a good faith effort to me means leaving a cell phone number with the message to ‘call me at any time.’ I have found that effort is required in an era of overproduction and no set times in the outpatient clinic for necessary phone calls.”
In an interview, Dr. Dawson commented on the predicament of Dr. Smith and Anna. “The inpatient staff seem to have a grandiose idea of where the care should be centered and that is with the outpatient doctor making the referral. Any plan not involving the referring doctor is not likely to be successful.”
Dr. Waddington talked about how she handles the situation when an inpatient unit refers her patients to a separate psychotherapist. “Usually, I discuss it with my patient. Sometimes they want a change and so I continue to see them for medications. Most of the time, they keep seeing me for therapy.” She went on to note, “I recently had a patient who was in the hospital and was referred to a trauma specialist for therapy. The referral was probably appropriate in her case; I just wish they had discussed this with me first.”
Dr. Smith calls himself “a dinosaur” – he likes treating patients with a combination of medications and psychotherapy and he does not enjoy seeing patients for brief visits for medication management. He was, however, concerned that Anna had been stretching out the time between sessions because of financial concerns, so he suggested she could meet with the therapist and see if she thought this might be helpful to her. If it was, he recommended she find a psychiatrist in her insurance network to prescribe her medications, with the hope that this would be a reasonable alternative to their current conundrum.
“I believe that many patients are best served by having their care come from a single psychiatrist and not treatment split between clinicians; however, I recognize that this is not always financially the best option. Anna might benefit from not having the financial stress of care from a psychiatrist where she is not reimbursed as well – if at all – by insurance. Still, I am annoyed; it feels like the inpatient team decided to write a new job description for me and to dictate through my patient how it is I should be practicing. And after they implied that I was not the best therapist for her, they hijacked her and sent her to someone who may well have much less experience than I do.”
In the clinical care of any patient, communication between the inpatient team and the outpatient physician is essential, and all too often, this doesn’t happen.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore.
Dr. Smith’s patient, Anna, was struggling. Her mother, with whom she lived, had died, her boyfriend had broken up with her, her teenagers were being difficult, and her anxiety about catching COVID left her isolated and lonely.
She was working in psychotherapy and a number of medications had been tried, but when Anna suggested that her children might be better off without her, Dr. Smith referred her to an inpatient unit at a local hospital for admission. He faxed over the clinical and demographic information that the hospital wanted, and he never heard a word from the inpatient unit until Anna texted him that she had been discharged. She noted that the hospitalization had been helpful.
“I have an appointment next week with a therapist,” Anna texted.
Dr. Smith was puzzled and he conveyed that in his response to her.
“They told me that you are the psychiatrist and I should see you once a month and that I need a therapist to see weekly.”
Dr. Smith remained puzzled. At times he had seen Anna weekly, and he always saw her for 50-minute (or longer) sessions, but he realized that the person in charge of discharge had decided that psychiatrists are not psychotherapists. As a psychiatrist who sees patients for psychotherapy, Dr. Smith was not in Anna’s health insurance plan, and perhaps the hospital discharged people to see in-network clinicians. Or perhaps they thought that if he were a better psychiatrist, his patient would not need an inpatient admission. All he could do was surmise, but clearly ; they had changed Anna’s treatment without the courtesy of a phone call.
“This happens to me all the time,” said Sally Waddington, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice in Laurel, Md. “Hospitals will tell my patients that psychiatrists are for medications and they need a separate therapist. It really undermines the treatment.”
Ramin Mojtabai, MD, PhD, MPH, is a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He has done research on trends in psychotherapy among psychiatrists and in 2008 published a study which showed that only 10.8% of psychiatrists see all of their patients for psychotherapy. The same data, however, revealed that 59.4% – or a majority – of psychiatrists see at least some of their patients for psychotherapy.
“Unfortunately, our profession has been defined by the insurance industry for decades,” Dr. Mojtabai said in an interview, “so, I am not surprised that the patient was told to see a ‘proper’ psychotherapist.”
George Dawson, MD, spent 22 years as a psychiatrist on an inpatient unit in Minnesota. On his blog, “Real Psychiatry,” Dr. Dawson has a lengthy post dated Oct. 3, 2021, titled “The problem with inpatient units.” Dr. Dawson writes, “There is a lack of collaboration with outpatient staff: Good inpatient care proceeds from the assumption that the main focus of treatment is with the primary psychiatrist or treatment team. ... The only acceptable reasons are that the patient does not have outpatient care, the patient refuses to consent to the communication, or the outpatient physician or their proxy cannot be contacted with a good faith effort. Being on both ends of that call – a good faith effort to me means leaving a cell phone number with the message to ‘call me at any time.’ I have found that effort is required in an era of overproduction and no set times in the outpatient clinic for necessary phone calls.”
In an interview, Dr. Dawson commented on the predicament of Dr. Smith and Anna. “The inpatient staff seem to have a grandiose idea of where the care should be centered and that is with the outpatient doctor making the referral. Any plan not involving the referring doctor is not likely to be successful.”
Dr. Waddington talked about how she handles the situation when an inpatient unit refers her patients to a separate psychotherapist. “Usually, I discuss it with my patient. Sometimes they want a change and so I continue to see them for medications. Most of the time, they keep seeing me for therapy.” She went on to note, “I recently had a patient who was in the hospital and was referred to a trauma specialist for therapy. The referral was probably appropriate in her case; I just wish they had discussed this with me first.”
Dr. Smith calls himself “a dinosaur” – he likes treating patients with a combination of medications and psychotherapy and he does not enjoy seeing patients for brief visits for medication management. He was, however, concerned that Anna had been stretching out the time between sessions because of financial concerns, so he suggested she could meet with the therapist and see if she thought this might be helpful to her. If it was, he recommended she find a psychiatrist in her insurance network to prescribe her medications, with the hope that this would be a reasonable alternative to their current conundrum.
“I believe that many patients are best served by having their care come from a single psychiatrist and not treatment split between clinicians; however, I recognize that this is not always financially the best option. Anna might benefit from not having the financial stress of care from a psychiatrist where she is not reimbursed as well – if at all – by insurance. Still, I am annoyed; it feels like the inpatient team decided to write a new job description for me and to dictate through my patient how it is I should be practicing. And after they implied that I was not the best therapist for her, they hijacked her and sent her to someone who may well have much less experience than I do.”
In the clinical care of any patient, communication between the inpatient team and the outpatient physician is essential, and all too often, this doesn’t happen.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore.
Four police suicides in the aftermath of the Capitol siege: What can we learn?
Officer Scott Davis is a passionate man who thinks and talks quickly. As a member of the Special Events Team for Montgomery County, Maryland, he was already staging in Rockville, outside of Washington, D.C., when the call came in last Jan. 6 to move their unit to the U.S. Capitol.
“It was surreal,” said Mr. Davis. “There were people from all different groups at the Capitol that day. Many people were trying to get out, but others surrounded us. They called us ‘human race traitors.’ And then I heard someone say, ‘It’s good you brought your shields, we’ll carry your bodies out on them.’”
Mr. Davis described hours of mayhem during which he was hit with bear spray, a brick, a chair, and a metal rod. One of the members of Mr. Davis’ unit remains on leave with a head injury nearly 9 months after the siege.
“It went on for 3 hours, but it felt like 15 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, it was over.”
For the members of law enforcement at the Capitol that day, the repercussions are still being felt, perhaps most notably in the case of the four officers who subsequently died of suicide. Three of the officers were with the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and one worked for the Capitol Police Department.
Police officers are subjected to traumas on a regular basis and often placed in circumstances where their lives are in danger. Yet four suicides within a short time – all connected to a single event – is particularly shocking and tragic, even more so for how little attention it has garnered to date.
What contributes to the high rate of suicide among officers?
Scott Silverii, PhD, a former police officer and author of Broken and Blue: A Policeman’s Guide to Health, Hope, and Healing, commented that he “wouldn’t be surprised if there are more suicides to come.” This stems not only from the experiences of that day but also the elevated risk for suicide that law enforcement officers already experienced prior to the Capitol riots. Suicide remains a rare event, with a national all-population average of 13.9 per 100,000 citizens. But as Dr. Silverii noted, more officers die by suicide each year than are killed in the line of duty.
“Suicide is a big part of police culture – officers are doers and fixers, and it is seen as being more honorable to take yourself out of the equation than it is to ask for help,” he said. “Most officers come in with past pain, and this is a situation where they are being overwhelmed and under-respected. At the same time, police culture is a closed culture, and it is not friendly to researchers.”
Another contributor is the frequency with which law enforcement officers are exposed to trauma, according to Vernon Herron, Director of Officer Safety and Wellness for the Baltimore City Police.
Mr. Herron said, citing the psychiatric and addiction issues that officers commonly experience.
Protecting the protectors
Mr. Herron and others are working to address these problems head-on.
“We are trying to identify employees exposed to trauma and to offer counseling and intervention,” he said, “Otherwise, everything else will fall short.”
Yet implementing such measures is no easy task, given the lack of a central oversight organization for law enforcement, said Sheldon Greenberg, PhD, a former police officer and professor of management in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
“In the United States there is no such thing as ‘The Police.’ There is no one in a position to set policy, standards, or training mandates nationally,” he said. “There are approximately 18,000 police and sheriff departments in the country, and many of them are small. No one can compel law enforcement agencies to implement officer wellness and suicide prevention programs, make counseling available to officers, or train supervisors and peers to identify suicide ideation.”
Dr. Greenberg said a further barrier to helping police officers considering self-harm is posed by the fact that even if they do seek out counseling, there is no guarantee that it will remain confidential.
“Support personnel have an obligation to report an officer who is thinking about committing suicide,” he said. “Many officers are concerned about this lack of confidentiality and that they may be branded if they seek help.”
Although Dr. Greenberg said many police officers are self-professed “action junkies,” even their unusually high capacity for stress is often tested by the realities of the job.
“Increasing demands for service, shortages of personnel, misinformation about police, COVID-19, talk about restructuring policing with little concrete direction, increased exposure to violence, greater numbers of vulnerable people, and more take a toll over time,” he lamented. “In addition, we are in a recruiting crisis in law enforcement, and there are no standards to ensure the quality of psychological screening provided to applicants. Many officers will go through their entire career and never be screened again. We know little about the stresses and strains that officers bring to the job.”
After the siege
It is not clear how many police officers were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6. During the chaos of the day, reinforcements to the Capitol Police Department arrived from Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, but no official numbers on responders were obtained; Mr. Davis thought it was likely that there were at least 1,000 law enforcement officers present. Those who did respond sustained an estimated 100 injuries, including an officer who died the next day. Of the officers who died by suicide, one died 3 days after, another died 9 days later, and two more died in July – numbers that contradict the notion that this is some coincidence. Officer Alexander Kettering, a colleague of Mr. Davis who has been with Montgomery County Police for 15 years, was among those tasked with protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6. The chaos, violence, and destruction of the day has stuck with him and continues to occupy his thoughts.
“I had a front-row seat to the whole thing. It was overwhelming, and I’ve never seen people this angry,” said Mr. Kettering. “There were people up on the veranda and on the scaffolding set up for the inauguration. They were smashing windows and throwing things into the crowd. It was insane. There were decent people coming up to us and saying they would pray for us, then others calling us traitors, telling us to stand down and join them.”
In the aftermath of the Capitol siege, Mr. Kettering watched in dismay as the narrative of the day’s events began to warp.
“At first there was a consensus that what happened was so wrong, and then the politics took over. People were saying it wasn’t as bad as the media said, that it really wasn’t that violent and those speaking out are traitors or political operatives. I relive it every day, and it’s hard to escape, even in casual conversation.”
He added that the days’ events were compounded by the already heightened tensions surrounding the national debate around policing.
“It’s been 18 months of stress, of anti-police movements, and there is a fine line between addressing police brutality and being anti-police,” Mr. Kettering said, noting that the aforementioned issues have all contributed to the ongoing struggles his fellow officers are experiencing.
“It’s not a thing for cops to talk about how an event affected them,” he said. “A lot of officers have just shut down. People have careers and pensions to protect, and every time we stop a motorist, something could go wrong, even if we do everything right. There are mixed signals: They tell us, ‘Defend but don’t defend.’”
His colleague, Mr. Davis, said that officers “need more support from politicians,” noting that he felt particularly insulted by a comment made by a Montgomery County public official who accused the officers present at the Capitol of racism. “And finally, we feel a little betrayed by the public.”
More questions than answers from the Capitol’s day of chaos
What about the events of Jan. 6 led to the suicides of four law enforcement officers and what can be done to prevent more deaths in the future? There are the individual factors of each man’s personal history, circumstances, and vulnerabilities, including the sense of being personally endangered, witnessing trauma, and direct injury – one officer who died of suicide had sustained a head injury that day.
We don’t know if the officers went into the event with preexisting mental illness or addiction or if the day’s events precipitated psychiatric episodes. And with all the partisan anger surrounding the presidential election, we don’t know if each officer’s political beliefs amplified his distress over what occurred in a social media climate where police are being faulted by all sides.
When multiple suicides occur in a community, there is always concern about a “copycat” phenomena. These concerns are made more difficult to address, however, given the police culture of taboo and stigma associated with getting professional help, difficulty accessing care, and career repercussions for speaking openly about suicidal thoughts and mental health issues.
Finally, there is the current political agenda that leaves officers feeling unsupported, fearful of negative outcomes, and unappreciated. The Capitol siege in particular embodied a great deal of national distress and confusion over basic issues of truth, justice, and perceptions of reality in our polarized society.
Can we move to a place where those who enforce laws have easy access to treatment, free from stigma? Can we encourage a culture that does not tolerate brutality or racism, while also refusing to label all police as bad and lending support to their mission? Can we be more attuned to the repercussions of circumstances where officers are witnesses to trauma, are endangered themselves, and would benefit from acknowledgment of their distress?
Time will tell if our anti-police pendulum swings back. In the meantime, these four suicides among people defending our country remain tragically overlooked.
Dinah Miller, MD, is coauthor of Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice in Baltimore and is an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Officer Scott Davis is a passionate man who thinks and talks quickly. As a member of the Special Events Team for Montgomery County, Maryland, he was already staging in Rockville, outside of Washington, D.C., when the call came in last Jan. 6 to move their unit to the U.S. Capitol.
“It was surreal,” said Mr. Davis. “There were people from all different groups at the Capitol that day. Many people were trying to get out, but others surrounded us. They called us ‘human race traitors.’ And then I heard someone say, ‘It’s good you brought your shields, we’ll carry your bodies out on them.’”
Mr. Davis described hours of mayhem during which he was hit with bear spray, a brick, a chair, and a metal rod. One of the members of Mr. Davis’ unit remains on leave with a head injury nearly 9 months after the siege.
“It went on for 3 hours, but it felt like 15 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, it was over.”
For the members of law enforcement at the Capitol that day, the repercussions are still being felt, perhaps most notably in the case of the four officers who subsequently died of suicide. Three of the officers were with the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and one worked for the Capitol Police Department.
Police officers are subjected to traumas on a regular basis and often placed in circumstances where their lives are in danger. Yet four suicides within a short time – all connected to a single event – is particularly shocking and tragic, even more so for how little attention it has garnered to date.
What contributes to the high rate of suicide among officers?
Scott Silverii, PhD, a former police officer and author of Broken and Blue: A Policeman’s Guide to Health, Hope, and Healing, commented that he “wouldn’t be surprised if there are more suicides to come.” This stems not only from the experiences of that day but also the elevated risk for suicide that law enforcement officers already experienced prior to the Capitol riots. Suicide remains a rare event, with a national all-population average of 13.9 per 100,000 citizens. But as Dr. Silverii noted, more officers die by suicide each year than are killed in the line of duty.
“Suicide is a big part of police culture – officers are doers and fixers, and it is seen as being more honorable to take yourself out of the equation than it is to ask for help,” he said. “Most officers come in with past pain, and this is a situation where they are being overwhelmed and under-respected. At the same time, police culture is a closed culture, and it is not friendly to researchers.”
Another contributor is the frequency with which law enforcement officers are exposed to trauma, according to Vernon Herron, Director of Officer Safety and Wellness for the Baltimore City Police.
Mr. Herron said, citing the psychiatric and addiction issues that officers commonly experience.
Protecting the protectors
Mr. Herron and others are working to address these problems head-on.
“We are trying to identify employees exposed to trauma and to offer counseling and intervention,” he said, “Otherwise, everything else will fall short.”
Yet implementing such measures is no easy task, given the lack of a central oversight organization for law enforcement, said Sheldon Greenberg, PhD, a former police officer and professor of management in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
“In the United States there is no such thing as ‘The Police.’ There is no one in a position to set policy, standards, or training mandates nationally,” he said. “There are approximately 18,000 police and sheriff departments in the country, and many of them are small. No one can compel law enforcement agencies to implement officer wellness and suicide prevention programs, make counseling available to officers, or train supervisors and peers to identify suicide ideation.”
Dr. Greenberg said a further barrier to helping police officers considering self-harm is posed by the fact that even if they do seek out counseling, there is no guarantee that it will remain confidential.
“Support personnel have an obligation to report an officer who is thinking about committing suicide,” he said. “Many officers are concerned about this lack of confidentiality and that they may be branded if they seek help.”
Although Dr. Greenberg said many police officers are self-professed “action junkies,” even their unusually high capacity for stress is often tested by the realities of the job.
“Increasing demands for service, shortages of personnel, misinformation about police, COVID-19, talk about restructuring policing with little concrete direction, increased exposure to violence, greater numbers of vulnerable people, and more take a toll over time,” he lamented. “In addition, we are in a recruiting crisis in law enforcement, and there are no standards to ensure the quality of psychological screening provided to applicants. Many officers will go through their entire career and never be screened again. We know little about the stresses and strains that officers bring to the job.”
After the siege
It is not clear how many police officers were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6. During the chaos of the day, reinforcements to the Capitol Police Department arrived from Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, but no official numbers on responders were obtained; Mr. Davis thought it was likely that there were at least 1,000 law enforcement officers present. Those who did respond sustained an estimated 100 injuries, including an officer who died the next day. Of the officers who died by suicide, one died 3 days after, another died 9 days later, and two more died in July – numbers that contradict the notion that this is some coincidence. Officer Alexander Kettering, a colleague of Mr. Davis who has been with Montgomery County Police for 15 years, was among those tasked with protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6. The chaos, violence, and destruction of the day has stuck with him and continues to occupy his thoughts.
“I had a front-row seat to the whole thing. It was overwhelming, and I’ve never seen people this angry,” said Mr. Kettering. “There were people up on the veranda and on the scaffolding set up for the inauguration. They were smashing windows and throwing things into the crowd. It was insane. There were decent people coming up to us and saying they would pray for us, then others calling us traitors, telling us to stand down and join them.”
In the aftermath of the Capitol siege, Mr. Kettering watched in dismay as the narrative of the day’s events began to warp.
“At first there was a consensus that what happened was so wrong, and then the politics took over. People were saying it wasn’t as bad as the media said, that it really wasn’t that violent and those speaking out are traitors or political operatives. I relive it every day, and it’s hard to escape, even in casual conversation.”
He added that the days’ events were compounded by the already heightened tensions surrounding the national debate around policing.
“It’s been 18 months of stress, of anti-police movements, and there is a fine line between addressing police brutality and being anti-police,” Mr. Kettering said, noting that the aforementioned issues have all contributed to the ongoing struggles his fellow officers are experiencing.
“It’s not a thing for cops to talk about how an event affected them,” he said. “A lot of officers have just shut down. People have careers and pensions to protect, and every time we stop a motorist, something could go wrong, even if we do everything right. There are mixed signals: They tell us, ‘Defend but don’t defend.’”
His colleague, Mr. Davis, said that officers “need more support from politicians,” noting that he felt particularly insulted by a comment made by a Montgomery County public official who accused the officers present at the Capitol of racism. “And finally, we feel a little betrayed by the public.”
More questions than answers from the Capitol’s day of chaos
What about the events of Jan. 6 led to the suicides of four law enforcement officers and what can be done to prevent more deaths in the future? There are the individual factors of each man’s personal history, circumstances, and vulnerabilities, including the sense of being personally endangered, witnessing trauma, and direct injury – one officer who died of suicide had sustained a head injury that day.
We don’t know if the officers went into the event with preexisting mental illness or addiction or if the day’s events precipitated psychiatric episodes. And with all the partisan anger surrounding the presidential election, we don’t know if each officer’s political beliefs amplified his distress over what occurred in a social media climate where police are being faulted by all sides.
When multiple suicides occur in a community, there is always concern about a “copycat” phenomena. These concerns are made more difficult to address, however, given the police culture of taboo and stigma associated with getting professional help, difficulty accessing care, and career repercussions for speaking openly about suicidal thoughts and mental health issues.
Finally, there is the current political agenda that leaves officers feeling unsupported, fearful of negative outcomes, and unappreciated. The Capitol siege in particular embodied a great deal of national distress and confusion over basic issues of truth, justice, and perceptions of reality in our polarized society.
Can we move to a place where those who enforce laws have easy access to treatment, free from stigma? Can we encourage a culture that does not tolerate brutality or racism, while also refusing to label all police as bad and lending support to their mission? Can we be more attuned to the repercussions of circumstances where officers are witnesses to trauma, are endangered themselves, and would benefit from acknowledgment of their distress?
Time will tell if our anti-police pendulum swings back. In the meantime, these four suicides among people defending our country remain tragically overlooked.
Dinah Miller, MD, is coauthor of Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice in Baltimore and is an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Officer Scott Davis is a passionate man who thinks and talks quickly. As a member of the Special Events Team for Montgomery County, Maryland, he was already staging in Rockville, outside of Washington, D.C., when the call came in last Jan. 6 to move their unit to the U.S. Capitol.
“It was surreal,” said Mr. Davis. “There were people from all different groups at the Capitol that day. Many people were trying to get out, but others surrounded us. They called us ‘human race traitors.’ And then I heard someone say, ‘It’s good you brought your shields, we’ll carry your bodies out on them.’”
Mr. Davis described hours of mayhem during which he was hit with bear spray, a brick, a chair, and a metal rod. One of the members of Mr. Davis’ unit remains on leave with a head injury nearly 9 months after the siege.
“It went on for 3 hours, but it felt like 15 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, it was over.”
For the members of law enforcement at the Capitol that day, the repercussions are still being felt, perhaps most notably in the case of the four officers who subsequently died of suicide. Three of the officers were with the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and one worked for the Capitol Police Department.
Police officers are subjected to traumas on a regular basis and often placed in circumstances where their lives are in danger. Yet four suicides within a short time – all connected to a single event – is particularly shocking and tragic, even more so for how little attention it has garnered to date.
What contributes to the high rate of suicide among officers?
Scott Silverii, PhD, a former police officer and author of Broken and Blue: A Policeman’s Guide to Health, Hope, and Healing, commented that he “wouldn’t be surprised if there are more suicides to come.” This stems not only from the experiences of that day but also the elevated risk for suicide that law enforcement officers already experienced prior to the Capitol riots. Suicide remains a rare event, with a national all-population average of 13.9 per 100,000 citizens. But as Dr. Silverii noted, more officers die by suicide each year than are killed in the line of duty.
“Suicide is a big part of police culture – officers are doers and fixers, and it is seen as being more honorable to take yourself out of the equation than it is to ask for help,” he said. “Most officers come in with past pain, and this is a situation where they are being overwhelmed and under-respected. At the same time, police culture is a closed culture, and it is not friendly to researchers.”
Another contributor is the frequency with which law enforcement officers are exposed to trauma, according to Vernon Herron, Director of Officer Safety and Wellness for the Baltimore City Police.
Mr. Herron said, citing the psychiatric and addiction issues that officers commonly experience.
Protecting the protectors
Mr. Herron and others are working to address these problems head-on.
“We are trying to identify employees exposed to trauma and to offer counseling and intervention,” he said, “Otherwise, everything else will fall short.”
Yet implementing such measures is no easy task, given the lack of a central oversight organization for law enforcement, said Sheldon Greenberg, PhD, a former police officer and professor of management in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
“In the United States there is no such thing as ‘The Police.’ There is no one in a position to set policy, standards, or training mandates nationally,” he said. “There are approximately 18,000 police and sheriff departments in the country, and many of them are small. No one can compel law enforcement agencies to implement officer wellness and suicide prevention programs, make counseling available to officers, or train supervisors and peers to identify suicide ideation.”
Dr. Greenberg said a further barrier to helping police officers considering self-harm is posed by the fact that even if they do seek out counseling, there is no guarantee that it will remain confidential.
“Support personnel have an obligation to report an officer who is thinking about committing suicide,” he said. “Many officers are concerned about this lack of confidentiality and that they may be branded if they seek help.”
Although Dr. Greenberg said many police officers are self-professed “action junkies,” even their unusually high capacity for stress is often tested by the realities of the job.
“Increasing demands for service, shortages of personnel, misinformation about police, COVID-19, talk about restructuring policing with little concrete direction, increased exposure to violence, greater numbers of vulnerable people, and more take a toll over time,” he lamented. “In addition, we are in a recruiting crisis in law enforcement, and there are no standards to ensure the quality of psychological screening provided to applicants. Many officers will go through their entire career and never be screened again. We know little about the stresses and strains that officers bring to the job.”
After the siege
It is not clear how many police officers were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6. During the chaos of the day, reinforcements to the Capitol Police Department arrived from Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, but no official numbers on responders were obtained; Mr. Davis thought it was likely that there were at least 1,000 law enforcement officers present. Those who did respond sustained an estimated 100 injuries, including an officer who died the next day. Of the officers who died by suicide, one died 3 days after, another died 9 days later, and two more died in July – numbers that contradict the notion that this is some coincidence. Officer Alexander Kettering, a colleague of Mr. Davis who has been with Montgomery County Police for 15 years, was among those tasked with protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6. The chaos, violence, and destruction of the day has stuck with him and continues to occupy his thoughts.
“I had a front-row seat to the whole thing. It was overwhelming, and I’ve never seen people this angry,” said Mr. Kettering. “There were people up on the veranda and on the scaffolding set up for the inauguration. They were smashing windows and throwing things into the crowd. It was insane. There were decent people coming up to us and saying they would pray for us, then others calling us traitors, telling us to stand down and join them.”
In the aftermath of the Capitol siege, Mr. Kettering watched in dismay as the narrative of the day’s events began to warp.
“At first there was a consensus that what happened was so wrong, and then the politics took over. People were saying it wasn’t as bad as the media said, that it really wasn’t that violent and those speaking out are traitors or political operatives. I relive it every day, and it’s hard to escape, even in casual conversation.”
He added that the days’ events were compounded by the already heightened tensions surrounding the national debate around policing.
“It’s been 18 months of stress, of anti-police movements, and there is a fine line between addressing police brutality and being anti-police,” Mr. Kettering said, noting that the aforementioned issues have all contributed to the ongoing struggles his fellow officers are experiencing.
“It’s not a thing for cops to talk about how an event affected them,” he said. “A lot of officers have just shut down. People have careers and pensions to protect, and every time we stop a motorist, something could go wrong, even if we do everything right. There are mixed signals: They tell us, ‘Defend but don’t defend.’”
His colleague, Mr. Davis, said that officers “need more support from politicians,” noting that he felt particularly insulted by a comment made by a Montgomery County public official who accused the officers present at the Capitol of racism. “And finally, we feel a little betrayed by the public.”
More questions than answers from the Capitol’s day of chaos
What about the events of Jan. 6 led to the suicides of four law enforcement officers and what can be done to prevent more deaths in the future? There are the individual factors of each man’s personal history, circumstances, and vulnerabilities, including the sense of being personally endangered, witnessing trauma, and direct injury – one officer who died of suicide had sustained a head injury that day.
We don’t know if the officers went into the event with preexisting mental illness or addiction or if the day’s events precipitated psychiatric episodes. And with all the partisan anger surrounding the presidential election, we don’t know if each officer’s political beliefs amplified his distress over what occurred in a social media climate where police are being faulted by all sides.
When multiple suicides occur in a community, there is always concern about a “copycat” phenomena. These concerns are made more difficult to address, however, given the police culture of taboo and stigma associated with getting professional help, difficulty accessing care, and career repercussions for speaking openly about suicidal thoughts and mental health issues.
Finally, there is the current political agenda that leaves officers feeling unsupported, fearful of negative outcomes, and unappreciated. The Capitol siege in particular embodied a great deal of national distress and confusion over basic issues of truth, justice, and perceptions of reality in our polarized society.
Can we move to a place where those who enforce laws have easy access to treatment, free from stigma? Can we encourage a culture that does not tolerate brutality or racism, while also refusing to label all police as bad and lending support to their mission? Can we be more attuned to the repercussions of circumstances where officers are witnesses to trauma, are endangered themselves, and would benefit from acknowledgment of their distress?
Time will tell if our anti-police pendulum swings back. In the meantime, these four suicides among people defending our country remain tragically overlooked.
Dinah Miller, MD, is coauthor of Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice in Baltimore and is an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Obesity treatment in mental illness: Is semaglutide a game changer?
It’s probably fair to say that most people would like to be thinner. More than 42% of Americans have obesity and another 30% are classified as being overweight, according to the latest statistics from the CDC.
Excess body weight is associated with many illnesses and plays a role in mental health; being heavy can take a toll on self-esteem. Many people worry that carrying excess weight makes them less attractive to potential romantic partners, and both physicians and employers treat those with obesity differently. Furthermore, in psychiatry, many of the medications we prescribe lead to weight gain.
In my clinical practice, I have listened as patients blamed themselves for their body habitus; many won’t consider biological treatments as they feel that would be “cheating” or taking an easy way out. They often point to periods in their life when they did lose weight and believe that they should be able to do it again, even if the weight loss took tremendous effort, was not sustained, and occurred decades ago.
That said, we psychiatrists often find ourselves in the position of managing obesity in our patients. I have been known to give patients who gain weight on antipsychotics either stimulants or metformin, or to add naltrexone to their Wellbutrin (bupropion) to effectively mimic a weight-loss medicine called Contrave.
Obesity a treatable medical condition
It wasn’t until 2013 that the American Medical Association recognized obesity as a medical condition.
In a New Yorker article that same year, “Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?” Suzanne Koven wrote: “Several obesity experts told me they’ve encountered doctors who confide that they just didn’t like fat people and don’t enjoy taking care of them. Even doctors who treat obese patients feel stigmatized: ‘diet doctor’ is not a flattering term.”
Eat less, exercise more – with a blame-the-patient attitude – is still what people see as the “right” way to lose weight.
On June 4, 2021, the FDA approved semaglutide, a glucagonlike peptide–1 receptor agonist, previously used for the treatment of diabetes, for use as a weight loss agent for patients with obesity, or for those with a body mass index over 27 kg/m2 if they also have a weight-related comorbidity.
Semaglutide has three trade names, all manufactured by Novo Nordisk. The pill version is called Rybelsus and comes in 7-mg and 14-mg tablets. Ozempic is available in 0.5-mg and 1.0-mg doses and is administered weekly by subcutaneous injection for diabetes. The new, higher-dose preparation for weight loss, Wegovy, 2.4 mg, also comes as a weekly subcutaneous dose and is now available for the hefty price of $1,400 per month.
In STEP 1 trials, the higher-dose Wegovy was associated with an average 14.9% weight loss (15.3 kg) over 68 weeks, more than any other single-agent weight loss medication on the market.
GLP-1 receptor agonists work in the brain to decrease appetite, slow gastric emptying, increase insulin secretion, and stimulate brown adipose tissue thermogenesis.
Psych drugs lead to weight gain
Elaine Weiner, MD, is the medical director in the outpatient research program of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Catonsville, where she treats patients with schizophrenia.
“Nearly all of our patients gain 20 pounds or more on the combinations of medications we use, mostly atypical antipsychotics,” she said. “Weight management is difficult for people who don’t have problems with motivation, but in our patients, lack of motivation is a core part of their illness, so asking them to adhere to diet and exercise regimens is of limited utility.
“Then, add to that the fact that they sometimes don’t have primary care doctors, and these issues of weight gain and metabolic syndrome come back to the psychiatrist. It is a really bad problem and we need more treatments.”
Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, is a fellowship-trained obesity medicine physician-scientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. She has treated thousands of patients with obesity, speaks internationally on the topic of weight loss medicine, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles on obesity.
We spoke at length about recent changes in the field of obesity medicine and the introduction of the new GLP-1 receptor agonists.
“We as physicians have learned so little,” Dr. Stanford said. “This mantra of ‘calories in, calories out’ is not working; this is inaccurate and our focus on this has led to a rise in obesity. All calories are not created the same, and I think we are finally starting to see obesity medicine take off.”
Dr. Stanford is quick to note that obesity is a complex problem. Several different hormones are involved in regulating both appetite and satiety, processed foods promote weight gain, sleep is crucial to weight loss, and exercise helps maintain weight loss but is not usually effective in promoting it. “There are many contributors to energy storage,” she said.
The stimulant phentermine was approved in 1959. Addiction was a concern, and then in the 1990s, it was used in combination with fenfluramine to promote weight loss, a combination known as phen-fen. Fenfluramine was pulled from the market in 1997 when it was found to be associated with pulmonary hypertension and then heart valve abnormalities.
“This frightened quite a few physicians,” Dr. Stanford noted. Phentermine is still used for weight loss, either alone or together with topiramate, as a combination medication called Qsymia, nicknamed phen-top.
“Phen-top is the next best thing we have to semaglutide, and there is an average weight loss of 8%-9% of body weight. Semaglutide is going to be really significant for those people who are responders, and this has been quite well tolerated, the most common side effect being nausea,” she said.
However, she is quick to note that not everyone responds to every medication. “I use each patient’s clinical profile to determine what strategies and which medications to use.”
Cardiologists getting in the game
Michael Miller, MD, is a cardiologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and author of “Heal Your Heart” (Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2014). He is very enthusiastic about the approval of semaglutide.
“We are so excited because you finally can use these medicines without having to be diabetic,” Dr. Miller said. “We’re waiting on the results of the SELECT [Semaglutide Effects on Heart Disease and Stroke in Patients With Overweight or Obesity] trials looking at people who are not diabetic or who are prediabetic, to see the 5-year outcomes with regard to cardiac events.
“Usually endocrinologists prescribe these medications, but cardiologists have started to get into the game since GLP-1 receptor agonists reduce cardiovascular events.” Dr. Miller is hopeful that this medication may neutralize the weight gain caused by psychotropic medications.
Wegovy is administered via weekly injection and, like insulin, is a subcutaneous medication that patients self-administer. Will patients be amenable to injecting a medication for weight loss? Dr. Stanford said that roughly 20%-30% of her patients are hesitant when she suggests that they use liraglutide, another GLP-1 receptor agonist that is approved for weight loss, and some are very fearful of needles.
However, she also noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many more patients have sought treatment from obesity medicine physicians because of the association between obesity and mortality from COVID-19. Patients have been willing to consider treatments that they were not previously open to pursuing.
So if people are willing to take Wegovy and doctors are willing to prescribe it, will insurers pay for it? As of this writing, the medication is not yet available, but Ozempic, the lower-dose agent for diabetes, costs $850-$900 for a 4-week supply, according to the GoodRx website.
Liraglutide (Saxenda), the GLP-1 receptor agonist that is currently available for weight loss as a daily injectable, costs $1,300-$1,400 per month.
These medications are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and Dr. Stanford, who is well versed as to exactly which private insurers in Massachusetts will and will not reimburse specific medications, said her patients with insurance coverage have been known to delay retirement so that they can remain on the more expensive medications.
“For the past 8 years,” she said, “the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act has had bipartisan support in Congress but has not passed. We are still hopeful that insurers will be required to cover medical and behavioral treatments for obesity.”
As our society struggles to destigmatize so many disorders, obesity remains a highly stigmatized condition, one that our patients cannot hide and one that leads to so many other comorbid illnesses. As new treatments are approved, there will be more for physicians to offer. Semaglutide, if it becomes available to those who need it most, could be a game changer. For patients who have not had success with traditional weight-loss methods, it’s encouraging to have another option available, one that may be reasonable to try before resorting to bariatric surgery.
For decades, psychiatrists have been comfortable prescribing treatments that lead to weight gain. Now, maybe it’s time they also prescribe those that prevent it.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
It’s probably fair to say that most people would like to be thinner. More than 42% of Americans have obesity and another 30% are classified as being overweight, according to the latest statistics from the CDC.
Excess body weight is associated with many illnesses and plays a role in mental health; being heavy can take a toll on self-esteem. Many people worry that carrying excess weight makes them less attractive to potential romantic partners, and both physicians and employers treat those with obesity differently. Furthermore, in psychiatry, many of the medications we prescribe lead to weight gain.
In my clinical practice, I have listened as patients blamed themselves for their body habitus; many won’t consider biological treatments as they feel that would be “cheating” or taking an easy way out. They often point to periods in their life when they did lose weight and believe that they should be able to do it again, even if the weight loss took tremendous effort, was not sustained, and occurred decades ago.
That said, we psychiatrists often find ourselves in the position of managing obesity in our patients. I have been known to give patients who gain weight on antipsychotics either stimulants or metformin, or to add naltrexone to their Wellbutrin (bupropion) to effectively mimic a weight-loss medicine called Contrave.
Obesity a treatable medical condition
It wasn’t until 2013 that the American Medical Association recognized obesity as a medical condition.
In a New Yorker article that same year, “Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?” Suzanne Koven wrote: “Several obesity experts told me they’ve encountered doctors who confide that they just didn’t like fat people and don’t enjoy taking care of them. Even doctors who treat obese patients feel stigmatized: ‘diet doctor’ is not a flattering term.”
Eat less, exercise more – with a blame-the-patient attitude – is still what people see as the “right” way to lose weight.
On June 4, 2021, the FDA approved semaglutide, a glucagonlike peptide–1 receptor agonist, previously used for the treatment of diabetes, for use as a weight loss agent for patients with obesity, or for those with a body mass index over 27 kg/m2 if they also have a weight-related comorbidity.
Semaglutide has three trade names, all manufactured by Novo Nordisk. The pill version is called Rybelsus and comes in 7-mg and 14-mg tablets. Ozempic is available in 0.5-mg and 1.0-mg doses and is administered weekly by subcutaneous injection for diabetes. The new, higher-dose preparation for weight loss, Wegovy, 2.4 mg, also comes as a weekly subcutaneous dose and is now available for the hefty price of $1,400 per month.
In STEP 1 trials, the higher-dose Wegovy was associated with an average 14.9% weight loss (15.3 kg) over 68 weeks, more than any other single-agent weight loss medication on the market.
GLP-1 receptor agonists work in the brain to decrease appetite, slow gastric emptying, increase insulin secretion, and stimulate brown adipose tissue thermogenesis.
Psych drugs lead to weight gain
Elaine Weiner, MD, is the medical director in the outpatient research program of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Catonsville, where she treats patients with schizophrenia.
“Nearly all of our patients gain 20 pounds or more on the combinations of medications we use, mostly atypical antipsychotics,” she said. “Weight management is difficult for people who don’t have problems with motivation, but in our patients, lack of motivation is a core part of their illness, so asking them to adhere to diet and exercise regimens is of limited utility.
“Then, add to that the fact that they sometimes don’t have primary care doctors, and these issues of weight gain and metabolic syndrome come back to the psychiatrist. It is a really bad problem and we need more treatments.”
Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, is a fellowship-trained obesity medicine physician-scientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. She has treated thousands of patients with obesity, speaks internationally on the topic of weight loss medicine, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles on obesity.
We spoke at length about recent changes in the field of obesity medicine and the introduction of the new GLP-1 receptor agonists.
“We as physicians have learned so little,” Dr. Stanford said. “This mantra of ‘calories in, calories out’ is not working; this is inaccurate and our focus on this has led to a rise in obesity. All calories are not created the same, and I think we are finally starting to see obesity medicine take off.”
Dr. Stanford is quick to note that obesity is a complex problem. Several different hormones are involved in regulating both appetite and satiety, processed foods promote weight gain, sleep is crucial to weight loss, and exercise helps maintain weight loss but is not usually effective in promoting it. “There are many contributors to energy storage,” she said.
The stimulant phentermine was approved in 1959. Addiction was a concern, and then in the 1990s, it was used in combination with fenfluramine to promote weight loss, a combination known as phen-fen. Fenfluramine was pulled from the market in 1997 when it was found to be associated with pulmonary hypertension and then heart valve abnormalities.
“This frightened quite a few physicians,” Dr. Stanford noted. Phentermine is still used for weight loss, either alone or together with topiramate, as a combination medication called Qsymia, nicknamed phen-top.
“Phen-top is the next best thing we have to semaglutide, and there is an average weight loss of 8%-9% of body weight. Semaglutide is going to be really significant for those people who are responders, and this has been quite well tolerated, the most common side effect being nausea,” she said.
However, she is quick to note that not everyone responds to every medication. “I use each patient’s clinical profile to determine what strategies and which medications to use.”
Cardiologists getting in the game
Michael Miller, MD, is a cardiologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and author of “Heal Your Heart” (Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2014). He is very enthusiastic about the approval of semaglutide.
“We are so excited because you finally can use these medicines without having to be diabetic,” Dr. Miller said. “We’re waiting on the results of the SELECT [Semaglutide Effects on Heart Disease and Stroke in Patients With Overweight or Obesity] trials looking at people who are not diabetic or who are prediabetic, to see the 5-year outcomes with regard to cardiac events.
“Usually endocrinologists prescribe these medications, but cardiologists have started to get into the game since GLP-1 receptor agonists reduce cardiovascular events.” Dr. Miller is hopeful that this medication may neutralize the weight gain caused by psychotropic medications.
Wegovy is administered via weekly injection and, like insulin, is a subcutaneous medication that patients self-administer. Will patients be amenable to injecting a medication for weight loss? Dr. Stanford said that roughly 20%-30% of her patients are hesitant when she suggests that they use liraglutide, another GLP-1 receptor agonist that is approved for weight loss, and some are very fearful of needles.
However, she also noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many more patients have sought treatment from obesity medicine physicians because of the association between obesity and mortality from COVID-19. Patients have been willing to consider treatments that they were not previously open to pursuing.
So if people are willing to take Wegovy and doctors are willing to prescribe it, will insurers pay for it? As of this writing, the medication is not yet available, but Ozempic, the lower-dose agent for diabetes, costs $850-$900 for a 4-week supply, according to the GoodRx website.
Liraglutide (Saxenda), the GLP-1 receptor agonist that is currently available for weight loss as a daily injectable, costs $1,300-$1,400 per month.
These medications are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and Dr. Stanford, who is well versed as to exactly which private insurers in Massachusetts will and will not reimburse specific medications, said her patients with insurance coverage have been known to delay retirement so that they can remain on the more expensive medications.
“For the past 8 years,” she said, “the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act has had bipartisan support in Congress but has not passed. We are still hopeful that insurers will be required to cover medical and behavioral treatments for obesity.”
As our society struggles to destigmatize so many disorders, obesity remains a highly stigmatized condition, one that our patients cannot hide and one that leads to so many other comorbid illnesses. As new treatments are approved, there will be more for physicians to offer. Semaglutide, if it becomes available to those who need it most, could be a game changer. For patients who have not had success with traditional weight-loss methods, it’s encouraging to have another option available, one that may be reasonable to try before resorting to bariatric surgery.
For decades, psychiatrists have been comfortable prescribing treatments that lead to weight gain. Now, maybe it’s time they also prescribe those that prevent it.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
It’s probably fair to say that most people would like to be thinner. More than 42% of Americans have obesity and another 30% are classified as being overweight, according to the latest statistics from the CDC.
Excess body weight is associated with many illnesses and plays a role in mental health; being heavy can take a toll on self-esteem. Many people worry that carrying excess weight makes them less attractive to potential romantic partners, and both physicians and employers treat those with obesity differently. Furthermore, in psychiatry, many of the medications we prescribe lead to weight gain.
In my clinical practice, I have listened as patients blamed themselves for their body habitus; many won’t consider biological treatments as they feel that would be “cheating” or taking an easy way out. They often point to periods in their life when they did lose weight and believe that they should be able to do it again, even if the weight loss took tremendous effort, was not sustained, and occurred decades ago.
That said, we psychiatrists often find ourselves in the position of managing obesity in our patients. I have been known to give patients who gain weight on antipsychotics either stimulants or metformin, or to add naltrexone to their Wellbutrin (bupropion) to effectively mimic a weight-loss medicine called Contrave.
Obesity a treatable medical condition
It wasn’t until 2013 that the American Medical Association recognized obesity as a medical condition.
In a New Yorker article that same year, “Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?” Suzanne Koven wrote: “Several obesity experts told me they’ve encountered doctors who confide that they just didn’t like fat people and don’t enjoy taking care of them. Even doctors who treat obese patients feel stigmatized: ‘diet doctor’ is not a flattering term.”
Eat less, exercise more – with a blame-the-patient attitude – is still what people see as the “right” way to lose weight.
On June 4, 2021, the FDA approved semaglutide, a glucagonlike peptide–1 receptor agonist, previously used for the treatment of diabetes, for use as a weight loss agent for patients with obesity, or for those with a body mass index over 27 kg/m2 if they also have a weight-related comorbidity.
Semaglutide has three trade names, all manufactured by Novo Nordisk. The pill version is called Rybelsus and comes in 7-mg and 14-mg tablets. Ozempic is available in 0.5-mg and 1.0-mg doses and is administered weekly by subcutaneous injection for diabetes. The new, higher-dose preparation for weight loss, Wegovy, 2.4 mg, also comes as a weekly subcutaneous dose and is now available for the hefty price of $1,400 per month.
In STEP 1 trials, the higher-dose Wegovy was associated with an average 14.9% weight loss (15.3 kg) over 68 weeks, more than any other single-agent weight loss medication on the market.
GLP-1 receptor agonists work in the brain to decrease appetite, slow gastric emptying, increase insulin secretion, and stimulate brown adipose tissue thermogenesis.
Psych drugs lead to weight gain
Elaine Weiner, MD, is the medical director in the outpatient research program of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Catonsville, where she treats patients with schizophrenia.
“Nearly all of our patients gain 20 pounds or more on the combinations of medications we use, mostly atypical antipsychotics,” she said. “Weight management is difficult for people who don’t have problems with motivation, but in our patients, lack of motivation is a core part of their illness, so asking them to adhere to diet and exercise regimens is of limited utility.
“Then, add to that the fact that they sometimes don’t have primary care doctors, and these issues of weight gain and metabolic syndrome come back to the psychiatrist. It is a really bad problem and we need more treatments.”
Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, is a fellowship-trained obesity medicine physician-scientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. She has treated thousands of patients with obesity, speaks internationally on the topic of weight loss medicine, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles on obesity.
We spoke at length about recent changes in the field of obesity medicine and the introduction of the new GLP-1 receptor agonists.
“We as physicians have learned so little,” Dr. Stanford said. “This mantra of ‘calories in, calories out’ is not working; this is inaccurate and our focus on this has led to a rise in obesity. All calories are not created the same, and I think we are finally starting to see obesity medicine take off.”
Dr. Stanford is quick to note that obesity is a complex problem. Several different hormones are involved in regulating both appetite and satiety, processed foods promote weight gain, sleep is crucial to weight loss, and exercise helps maintain weight loss but is not usually effective in promoting it. “There are many contributors to energy storage,” she said.
The stimulant phentermine was approved in 1959. Addiction was a concern, and then in the 1990s, it was used in combination with fenfluramine to promote weight loss, a combination known as phen-fen. Fenfluramine was pulled from the market in 1997 when it was found to be associated with pulmonary hypertension and then heart valve abnormalities.
“This frightened quite a few physicians,” Dr. Stanford noted. Phentermine is still used for weight loss, either alone or together with topiramate, as a combination medication called Qsymia, nicknamed phen-top.
“Phen-top is the next best thing we have to semaglutide, and there is an average weight loss of 8%-9% of body weight. Semaglutide is going to be really significant for those people who are responders, and this has been quite well tolerated, the most common side effect being nausea,” she said.
However, she is quick to note that not everyone responds to every medication. “I use each patient’s clinical profile to determine what strategies and which medications to use.”
Cardiologists getting in the game
Michael Miller, MD, is a cardiologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and author of “Heal Your Heart” (Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2014). He is very enthusiastic about the approval of semaglutide.
“We are so excited because you finally can use these medicines without having to be diabetic,” Dr. Miller said. “We’re waiting on the results of the SELECT [Semaglutide Effects on Heart Disease and Stroke in Patients With Overweight or Obesity] trials looking at people who are not diabetic or who are prediabetic, to see the 5-year outcomes with regard to cardiac events.
“Usually endocrinologists prescribe these medications, but cardiologists have started to get into the game since GLP-1 receptor agonists reduce cardiovascular events.” Dr. Miller is hopeful that this medication may neutralize the weight gain caused by psychotropic medications.
Wegovy is administered via weekly injection and, like insulin, is a subcutaneous medication that patients self-administer. Will patients be amenable to injecting a medication for weight loss? Dr. Stanford said that roughly 20%-30% of her patients are hesitant when she suggests that they use liraglutide, another GLP-1 receptor agonist that is approved for weight loss, and some are very fearful of needles.
However, she also noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many more patients have sought treatment from obesity medicine physicians because of the association between obesity and mortality from COVID-19. Patients have been willing to consider treatments that they were not previously open to pursuing.
So if people are willing to take Wegovy and doctors are willing to prescribe it, will insurers pay for it? As of this writing, the medication is not yet available, but Ozempic, the lower-dose agent for diabetes, costs $850-$900 for a 4-week supply, according to the GoodRx website.
Liraglutide (Saxenda), the GLP-1 receptor agonist that is currently available for weight loss as a daily injectable, costs $1,300-$1,400 per month.
These medications are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and Dr. Stanford, who is well versed as to exactly which private insurers in Massachusetts will and will not reimburse specific medications, said her patients with insurance coverage have been known to delay retirement so that they can remain on the more expensive medications.
“For the past 8 years,” she said, “the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act has had bipartisan support in Congress but has not passed. We are still hopeful that insurers will be required to cover medical and behavioral treatments for obesity.”
As our society struggles to destigmatize so many disorders, obesity remains a highly stigmatized condition, one that our patients cannot hide and one that leads to so many other comorbid illnesses. As new treatments are approved, there will be more for physicians to offer. Semaglutide, if it becomes available to those who need it most, could be a game changer. For patients who have not had success with traditional weight-loss methods, it’s encouraging to have another option available, one that may be reasonable to try before resorting to bariatric surgery.
For decades, psychiatrists have been comfortable prescribing treatments that lead to weight gain. Now, maybe it’s time they also prescribe those that prevent it.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Is TikTok a tool in mental health care?
There was a time when I was on the cutting edge of psychiatry and technology. I was the first physician I knew to communicate with my patients by text messages, which left my colleagues aghast. And then, in 2006, I started a blog with two other psychiatrists; they chose to use pseudonyms, but I used my real (and uncommon) first name, well aware that this might leave me a bit exposed.
“You know your patients will read it,” one colleague said when I told him. Was that bad? I had no intention of writing anything I would be embarrassed to have others read. And yes, it’s obviously hard to know how people will react to what you say in another context, but I am a writer, and squelching this part of me would have left me feeling that I’m not living a genuine life. And so I write, always aware that others may be watching over my shoulder.
Social media has also been a part of my life. It is therefore with great interest that I took note of a new trend: Several of my psychiatrist colleagues were taking to TikTok to share their personal experiences in ways that probably would have been unthinkable just a few years past.
Psychiatry finds an unexpected new platform
TikTok is an app platform for sharing short-form videos, not the written word. It’s dominated by song and dance videos, sometimes lip-synced, and often recorded by the user holding a phone. The videos are brief, lasting mere seconds to a minute.
TikTok was launched in China in 2016 and became available worldwide in 2018. Since that time, it’s primarily become a venue for younger people, with 41% of users in the 16- to 24-year-old age range. They are skilled at navigating TikTok’s truly overwhelming amount of content, something I have yet to comfortably master as an observer, much less as someone who creates content.
David Puder, MD (@dr.davidpuder) is a psychiatrist in Florida who has not shied away from TikTok. He started making videos on the platform in 2020 as a way to promote his Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast. His videos are casual and informative, and his TikTok description reads: “I am trying to teach things to help you connect better with others.”
“TikTok became another way of promoting mental health ideas,” said Dr. Puder. “There is a lot of bad information out there and my overarching purpose is to try to get people excited about mental health.”
Dr. Puder has nearly 112,000 TikTok followers. There’s a mix of creativity and acting that goes into the production of his videos, which he tends to record from his office or car. They vary in content. Some include music, while others are seconds-long mini-lectures on psychiatric topics. Some are purely educational but can include a joke about how many narcissists it takes to screw in a light bulb. They’re also where I learned that he is more likely to cry at sad movies than is his wife.
“I wish more doctors considered being out there,” Dr. Puder said, “but there is an internal resistance we have to exposing ourselves.”
TikTok and podcasting have been positive experiences for him. “I get emails from followers with notes of gratitude, and l have gotten feedback that people have become mental health professionals because of my social media.”
TikTok’s psychiatrist sensation
Melissa Shepard, MD (@doctorshepard_md) is also a psychiatrist who posts content on TikTok. With over a million followers, Dr. Shepard is TikTok’s psychiatrist sensation. She started posting mental health information on Instagram, and then in December 2019 began to cross-post on TikTok. She estimates that she has put up hundreds of videos but does not have an exact number. The Today Show used one of her TikTok videos for a segment on teen mental health.
“It has been cool to contribute to the conversation in this kind of way,” Dr. Shepard said.
The media attention has been a mixed bag for Dr. Shepard. As anyone who talks about psychiatry on social media knows, there are people who are vocal about their antipsychiatry opinions, and Dr. Shepard has not been spared. Sometimes the feedback has been hostile or even threatening.
“There have been ups and downs,” she said. “I have thought about stopping, but then I get these amazing messages from people who tell me that my videos made them realize they needed help. So while it has been a bumpy ride, I feel like I’m doing something good.”
Dr. Shepard’s videos are more personal in that she has used TikTok as a forum to discuss her own mental health struggles. “It’s scary, but it has also been liberating. I want people to know that they can succeed and that we need to get rid of the stigma because it gets in the way. When I was suffering from panic attacks and depression, I thought I was the only medical student with these issues and it meant I couldn’t become a doctor.”
Dr. Shepard estimates that half of her patients found her on TikTok. “I always ask myself, would I be okay with my patients seeing this? My patients are younger and they like that I’m on social media. It makes them feel like they know me before they start treatment.”
As we were talking, Dr. Shepard made note of the fact that having a public persona does not fit in with the “blank slate” rules of a psychodynamic psychotherapy.
She had me wondering how those rules might have been constructed if the internet and social media had existed when psychoanalysis was just developing. Perhaps we’d all be clicking “follow” on Sigmund Freud’s TikTok account.Dr. Miller is a coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. She has no disclosures.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
There was a time when I was on the cutting edge of psychiatry and technology. I was the first physician I knew to communicate with my patients by text messages, which left my colleagues aghast. And then, in 2006, I started a blog with two other psychiatrists; they chose to use pseudonyms, but I used my real (and uncommon) first name, well aware that this might leave me a bit exposed.
“You know your patients will read it,” one colleague said when I told him. Was that bad? I had no intention of writing anything I would be embarrassed to have others read. And yes, it’s obviously hard to know how people will react to what you say in another context, but I am a writer, and squelching this part of me would have left me feeling that I’m not living a genuine life. And so I write, always aware that others may be watching over my shoulder.
Social media has also been a part of my life. It is therefore with great interest that I took note of a new trend: Several of my psychiatrist colleagues were taking to TikTok to share their personal experiences in ways that probably would have been unthinkable just a few years past.
Psychiatry finds an unexpected new platform
TikTok is an app platform for sharing short-form videos, not the written word. It’s dominated by song and dance videos, sometimes lip-synced, and often recorded by the user holding a phone. The videos are brief, lasting mere seconds to a minute.
TikTok was launched in China in 2016 and became available worldwide in 2018. Since that time, it’s primarily become a venue for younger people, with 41% of users in the 16- to 24-year-old age range. They are skilled at navigating TikTok’s truly overwhelming amount of content, something I have yet to comfortably master as an observer, much less as someone who creates content.
David Puder, MD (@dr.davidpuder) is a psychiatrist in Florida who has not shied away from TikTok. He started making videos on the platform in 2020 as a way to promote his Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast. His videos are casual and informative, and his TikTok description reads: “I am trying to teach things to help you connect better with others.”
“TikTok became another way of promoting mental health ideas,” said Dr. Puder. “There is a lot of bad information out there and my overarching purpose is to try to get people excited about mental health.”
Dr. Puder has nearly 112,000 TikTok followers. There’s a mix of creativity and acting that goes into the production of his videos, which he tends to record from his office or car. They vary in content. Some include music, while others are seconds-long mini-lectures on psychiatric topics. Some are purely educational but can include a joke about how many narcissists it takes to screw in a light bulb. They’re also where I learned that he is more likely to cry at sad movies than is his wife.
“I wish more doctors considered being out there,” Dr. Puder said, “but there is an internal resistance we have to exposing ourselves.”
TikTok and podcasting have been positive experiences for him. “I get emails from followers with notes of gratitude, and l have gotten feedback that people have become mental health professionals because of my social media.”
TikTok’s psychiatrist sensation
Melissa Shepard, MD (@doctorshepard_md) is also a psychiatrist who posts content on TikTok. With over a million followers, Dr. Shepard is TikTok’s psychiatrist sensation. She started posting mental health information on Instagram, and then in December 2019 began to cross-post on TikTok. She estimates that she has put up hundreds of videos but does not have an exact number. The Today Show used one of her TikTok videos for a segment on teen mental health.
“It has been cool to contribute to the conversation in this kind of way,” Dr. Shepard said.
The media attention has been a mixed bag for Dr. Shepard. As anyone who talks about psychiatry on social media knows, there are people who are vocal about their antipsychiatry opinions, and Dr. Shepard has not been spared. Sometimes the feedback has been hostile or even threatening.
“There have been ups and downs,” she said. “I have thought about stopping, but then I get these amazing messages from people who tell me that my videos made them realize they needed help. So while it has been a bumpy ride, I feel like I’m doing something good.”
Dr. Shepard’s videos are more personal in that she has used TikTok as a forum to discuss her own mental health struggles. “It’s scary, but it has also been liberating. I want people to know that they can succeed and that we need to get rid of the stigma because it gets in the way. When I was suffering from panic attacks and depression, I thought I was the only medical student with these issues and it meant I couldn’t become a doctor.”
Dr. Shepard estimates that half of her patients found her on TikTok. “I always ask myself, would I be okay with my patients seeing this? My patients are younger and they like that I’m on social media. It makes them feel like they know me before they start treatment.”
As we were talking, Dr. Shepard made note of the fact that having a public persona does not fit in with the “blank slate” rules of a psychodynamic psychotherapy.
She had me wondering how those rules might have been constructed if the internet and social media had existed when psychoanalysis was just developing. Perhaps we’d all be clicking “follow” on Sigmund Freud’s TikTok account.Dr. Miller is a coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. She has no disclosures.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
There was a time when I was on the cutting edge of psychiatry and technology. I was the first physician I knew to communicate with my patients by text messages, which left my colleagues aghast. And then, in 2006, I started a blog with two other psychiatrists; they chose to use pseudonyms, but I used my real (and uncommon) first name, well aware that this might leave me a bit exposed.
“You know your patients will read it,” one colleague said when I told him. Was that bad? I had no intention of writing anything I would be embarrassed to have others read. And yes, it’s obviously hard to know how people will react to what you say in another context, but I am a writer, and squelching this part of me would have left me feeling that I’m not living a genuine life. And so I write, always aware that others may be watching over my shoulder.
Social media has also been a part of my life. It is therefore with great interest that I took note of a new trend: Several of my psychiatrist colleagues were taking to TikTok to share their personal experiences in ways that probably would have been unthinkable just a few years past.
Psychiatry finds an unexpected new platform
TikTok is an app platform for sharing short-form videos, not the written word. It’s dominated by song and dance videos, sometimes lip-synced, and often recorded by the user holding a phone. The videos are brief, lasting mere seconds to a minute.
TikTok was launched in China in 2016 and became available worldwide in 2018. Since that time, it’s primarily become a venue for younger people, with 41% of users in the 16- to 24-year-old age range. They are skilled at navigating TikTok’s truly overwhelming amount of content, something I have yet to comfortably master as an observer, much less as someone who creates content.
David Puder, MD (@dr.davidpuder) is a psychiatrist in Florida who has not shied away from TikTok. He started making videos on the platform in 2020 as a way to promote his Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast. His videos are casual and informative, and his TikTok description reads: “I am trying to teach things to help you connect better with others.”
“TikTok became another way of promoting mental health ideas,” said Dr. Puder. “There is a lot of bad information out there and my overarching purpose is to try to get people excited about mental health.”
Dr. Puder has nearly 112,000 TikTok followers. There’s a mix of creativity and acting that goes into the production of his videos, which he tends to record from his office or car. They vary in content. Some include music, while others are seconds-long mini-lectures on psychiatric topics. Some are purely educational but can include a joke about how many narcissists it takes to screw in a light bulb. They’re also where I learned that he is more likely to cry at sad movies than is his wife.
“I wish more doctors considered being out there,” Dr. Puder said, “but there is an internal resistance we have to exposing ourselves.”
TikTok and podcasting have been positive experiences for him. “I get emails from followers with notes of gratitude, and l have gotten feedback that people have become mental health professionals because of my social media.”
TikTok’s psychiatrist sensation
Melissa Shepard, MD (@doctorshepard_md) is also a psychiatrist who posts content on TikTok. With over a million followers, Dr. Shepard is TikTok’s psychiatrist sensation. She started posting mental health information on Instagram, and then in December 2019 began to cross-post on TikTok. She estimates that she has put up hundreds of videos but does not have an exact number. The Today Show used one of her TikTok videos for a segment on teen mental health.
“It has been cool to contribute to the conversation in this kind of way,” Dr. Shepard said.
The media attention has been a mixed bag for Dr. Shepard. As anyone who talks about psychiatry on social media knows, there are people who are vocal about their antipsychiatry opinions, and Dr. Shepard has not been spared. Sometimes the feedback has been hostile or even threatening.
“There have been ups and downs,” she said. “I have thought about stopping, but then I get these amazing messages from people who tell me that my videos made them realize they needed help. So while it has been a bumpy ride, I feel like I’m doing something good.”
Dr. Shepard’s videos are more personal in that she has used TikTok as a forum to discuss her own mental health struggles. “It’s scary, but it has also been liberating. I want people to know that they can succeed and that we need to get rid of the stigma because it gets in the way. When I was suffering from panic attacks and depression, I thought I was the only medical student with these issues and it meant I couldn’t become a doctor.”
Dr. Shepard estimates that half of her patients found her on TikTok. “I always ask myself, would I be okay with my patients seeing this? My patients are younger and they like that I’m on social media. It makes them feel like they know me before they start treatment.”
As we were talking, Dr. Shepard made note of the fact that having a public persona does not fit in with the “blank slate” rules of a psychodynamic psychotherapy.
She had me wondering how those rules might have been constructed if the internet and social media had existed when psychoanalysis was just developing. Perhaps we’d all be clicking “follow” on Sigmund Freud’s TikTok account.Dr. Miller is a coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. She has no disclosures.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Britney Spears and her 13-year conservatorship: An abuse of involuntary care?
The public has watched the ongoing drama unfold in the media for the past 13 years. In 2008, pop star Britney Spears was placed on conservatorship – a court process that gave decision-making powers over her personal, legal, and financial decisions to another person.
On June 23, 2021, Ms. Spears announced in open court that she is traumatized by being conserved and wants her rights back, but we know little about what behaviors left her family and a judge to determine that she was not capable of managing her own affairs, and why this would remain the case for so many years.
Adam Nelson, MD, practices psychiatry in Marin County, Calif. He explained in an interview that there are different types of conservatorships. “Probate conservatorship is the traditional path for conservatorship of person, estate, and/or finances based on evidence of incapacity due to any medical condition. This is the type of conservatorship that Britney Spears has had and which she is now contesting.”
Ms. Spears was placed on conservatorship after two involuntary hospitalizations for psychiatric illness and/or substance abuse. Her father, Jamie Spears, was appointed by the court to be her conservator.
In a New York Times article, reporters Liz Day, Samantha Stark, and Joe Coscarelli recently wrote: “But now, confidential court records obtained by the New York Times reveal that Ms. Spears, 39, expressed serious opposition to the conservatorship earlier and more often than had previously been known, and said that it restricted everything from whom she dated to the color of her kitchen cabinets.” The article goes on to say: “The newly obtained court records show that Ms. Spears questioned [her father’s] fitness for the role. As early as 2014, in a hearing closed to the public, Ms. Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, said she wanted to explore removing her father as conservator, citing his drinking, among other objections on a ‘shopping list’ of grievances.
“As the fight drags on, the bills are piling up – and, in a quirk of the conservatorship system, Ms. Spears has to pay for lawyers on both sides, including those arguing against her wishes in court. A recent $890,000 bill from one set of Mr. Spears’s lawyers, covering about 4 months of work, included media strategizing for defending the conservatorship.”
The case heated up at the June 23 hearing, when Ms. Spears had a telephone hearing with Los Angeles probate Judge Brenda Penney. The call was transcribed and published in Variety. The purpose of the hearing was for Ms. Spears to request an expedited release from her conservatorship without a psychiatric evaluation.
Ms. Spears began her 23-minute testimony to the judge by discussing her work and how she felt compelled to perform. “My management said, if I don’t do this tour, I will have to find an attorney, and by contract my own management could sue me if I didn’t follow through with the tour. ... So out of fear, I went ahead and I did the tour.”
She then discussed concerns by her manager that she was not complying with her medication regimen.
“Three days later, after I said no to Vegas,” Ms. Spears continued, “my therapist sat me down in a room and said he had a million phone calls about how I was not cooperating in rehearsals, and I haven’t been taking my medication. All this was false. He immediately, the next day, put me on lithium out of nowhere. He took me off my normal meds I’ve been on for 5 years. ... There were six different nurses in my home and they wouldn’t let me get in my car to go anywhere for a month.”
She spoke about entering rehab at the insistence of the conservatorship, and relayed her distress about this experience. She talked poignantly about her frustration of feeling she was not being heard by the court the last time she spoke and about the financial conflicts of interest created by her conservatorship. Ms. Spears, who has appeared on national television, recorded albums, and gone on performance tours during this period, has a net worth estimated at $60 million.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve owned my money. And it’s my wish and my dream for all of this to end without being tested,” she told the judge. “Again, it makes no sense whatsoever for the state of California to sit back and literally watch me with their own two eyes, make a living for so many people, and pay so many people trucks and buses on the road with me and be told, I’m not good enough. But I’m great at what I do. And I allow these people to control what I do, ma’am. And it’s enough. It makes no sense at all.”
Finally, Ms. Spears expressed a heart-wrenching desire to have another child and she asserted that the conservatorship will not allow her to see a doctor to have her IUD removed. She talked about being required to go to therapy three times a week and contended that she is traumatized by all that has transpired.
Ms. Spears has not filed the necessary paperwork to have her conservatorship ended. In an interview with Vice, attorney Scott Rahn noted that the process to end conservatorship can be a lengthy and difficult path. To do so, she might first need to petition the court to be allowed to hire her own attorney. If uncontested, the conservatorship could possibly be ended within months, but otherwise this could entail a lengthy trial over the course of years. While ending conservatorship may entail discovery, depositions, and hearings over years, a scathing story in the New Yorker detailed how Ms. Spears was placed into this conservatorship in a matter of days, without being present to give her own testimony. In the usual circumstances, California law requires that the person being conserved must be given 5 days’ notice before a conservatorship takes place, but Ms. Spears was deemed to be at risk of substantial harm and the judge allowed for an immediate conservatorship. The article notes that even axe murderers are allowed to hire lawyers, while those placed in conservatorships are not.
Reasoning behind such actions
Often, people are appointed guardians, conservators, or payees because of concerns that their psychiatric or substance use disorders, dementia, or impaired intellectual states lead them to poor decisions that endanger their financial stability. Usually the money they may lose is from a government disability benefit, an inheritance, or former accrued wealth. In this unusual celebrity case, Britney Spears has been conserved while she maintained a rigorous work schedule and actively earned the money she is being protected from spending.
Dr. Nelson talked about how people come to be conserved. “The law regarding conservatorship is a state law, but conservatorships in California are done at the county level, and the counties don’t have a vested interest in protecting people from themselves unless a third party or a family member comes forward. I imagine there is another side to this story, I have never seen it used like this for someone who is working. Questions remain about why this conservatorship has gone on for 13 years.”
Dr. Nelson believes that the current California laws leave room for abuse. “If the children of a wealthy parent observes the parent spending their inheritance in a way they don’t approve of, they can claim the parent is impaired and needs to be conserved. Usually it doesn’t work, but it’s possible there are times when the courts are swayed.”
Why does it matter and why should psychiatrists be concerned? The issue of involuntary treatment is a contentious one, and the stakeholders on all sides are vocal when it comes to our country’s sickest and most vulnerable individuals. Any story with a whiff of abuse, or of someone who is not severely impaired being denied basic civil rights – including the right to refuse treatment – dilutes and stains the efforts of those who are trying to protect people who suffer from chronic psychotic disorders. And when society reaches further to say that an individual is not entitled to make their own basic life decisions, this further stigmatizes those with psychiatric illnesses. And people with both mental illnesses and substance use disorders often get better, so why would conservatorships be permanent?
Does our society want the courts to protect people from their own poor judgment? Should there be judges at every casino entrance? Where are the conservators for those who live in the streets? Again, this is a half-told story, one where the potential for abuse of the conserved remains a high risk, and the long-term message about involuntary care is one of taking a way a person’s rights unnecessarily.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. She has no disclosures.
The public has watched the ongoing drama unfold in the media for the past 13 years. In 2008, pop star Britney Spears was placed on conservatorship – a court process that gave decision-making powers over her personal, legal, and financial decisions to another person.
On June 23, 2021, Ms. Spears announced in open court that she is traumatized by being conserved and wants her rights back, but we know little about what behaviors left her family and a judge to determine that she was not capable of managing her own affairs, and why this would remain the case for so many years.
Adam Nelson, MD, practices psychiatry in Marin County, Calif. He explained in an interview that there are different types of conservatorships. “Probate conservatorship is the traditional path for conservatorship of person, estate, and/or finances based on evidence of incapacity due to any medical condition. This is the type of conservatorship that Britney Spears has had and which she is now contesting.”
Ms. Spears was placed on conservatorship after two involuntary hospitalizations for psychiatric illness and/or substance abuse. Her father, Jamie Spears, was appointed by the court to be her conservator.
In a New York Times article, reporters Liz Day, Samantha Stark, and Joe Coscarelli recently wrote: “But now, confidential court records obtained by the New York Times reveal that Ms. Spears, 39, expressed serious opposition to the conservatorship earlier and more often than had previously been known, and said that it restricted everything from whom she dated to the color of her kitchen cabinets.” The article goes on to say: “The newly obtained court records show that Ms. Spears questioned [her father’s] fitness for the role. As early as 2014, in a hearing closed to the public, Ms. Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, said she wanted to explore removing her father as conservator, citing his drinking, among other objections on a ‘shopping list’ of grievances.
“As the fight drags on, the bills are piling up – and, in a quirk of the conservatorship system, Ms. Spears has to pay for lawyers on both sides, including those arguing against her wishes in court. A recent $890,000 bill from one set of Mr. Spears’s lawyers, covering about 4 months of work, included media strategizing for defending the conservatorship.”
The case heated up at the June 23 hearing, when Ms. Spears had a telephone hearing with Los Angeles probate Judge Brenda Penney. The call was transcribed and published in Variety. The purpose of the hearing was for Ms. Spears to request an expedited release from her conservatorship without a psychiatric evaluation.
Ms. Spears began her 23-minute testimony to the judge by discussing her work and how she felt compelled to perform. “My management said, if I don’t do this tour, I will have to find an attorney, and by contract my own management could sue me if I didn’t follow through with the tour. ... So out of fear, I went ahead and I did the tour.”
She then discussed concerns by her manager that she was not complying with her medication regimen.
“Three days later, after I said no to Vegas,” Ms. Spears continued, “my therapist sat me down in a room and said he had a million phone calls about how I was not cooperating in rehearsals, and I haven’t been taking my medication. All this was false. He immediately, the next day, put me on lithium out of nowhere. He took me off my normal meds I’ve been on for 5 years. ... There were six different nurses in my home and they wouldn’t let me get in my car to go anywhere for a month.”
She spoke about entering rehab at the insistence of the conservatorship, and relayed her distress about this experience. She talked poignantly about her frustration of feeling she was not being heard by the court the last time she spoke and about the financial conflicts of interest created by her conservatorship. Ms. Spears, who has appeared on national television, recorded albums, and gone on performance tours during this period, has a net worth estimated at $60 million.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve owned my money. And it’s my wish and my dream for all of this to end without being tested,” she told the judge. “Again, it makes no sense whatsoever for the state of California to sit back and literally watch me with their own two eyes, make a living for so many people, and pay so many people trucks and buses on the road with me and be told, I’m not good enough. But I’m great at what I do. And I allow these people to control what I do, ma’am. And it’s enough. It makes no sense at all.”
Finally, Ms. Spears expressed a heart-wrenching desire to have another child and she asserted that the conservatorship will not allow her to see a doctor to have her IUD removed. She talked about being required to go to therapy three times a week and contended that she is traumatized by all that has transpired.
Ms. Spears has not filed the necessary paperwork to have her conservatorship ended. In an interview with Vice, attorney Scott Rahn noted that the process to end conservatorship can be a lengthy and difficult path. To do so, she might first need to petition the court to be allowed to hire her own attorney. If uncontested, the conservatorship could possibly be ended within months, but otherwise this could entail a lengthy trial over the course of years. While ending conservatorship may entail discovery, depositions, and hearings over years, a scathing story in the New Yorker detailed how Ms. Spears was placed into this conservatorship in a matter of days, without being present to give her own testimony. In the usual circumstances, California law requires that the person being conserved must be given 5 days’ notice before a conservatorship takes place, but Ms. Spears was deemed to be at risk of substantial harm and the judge allowed for an immediate conservatorship. The article notes that even axe murderers are allowed to hire lawyers, while those placed in conservatorships are not.
Reasoning behind such actions
Often, people are appointed guardians, conservators, or payees because of concerns that their psychiatric or substance use disorders, dementia, or impaired intellectual states lead them to poor decisions that endanger their financial stability. Usually the money they may lose is from a government disability benefit, an inheritance, or former accrued wealth. In this unusual celebrity case, Britney Spears has been conserved while she maintained a rigorous work schedule and actively earned the money she is being protected from spending.
Dr. Nelson talked about how people come to be conserved. “The law regarding conservatorship is a state law, but conservatorships in California are done at the county level, and the counties don’t have a vested interest in protecting people from themselves unless a third party or a family member comes forward. I imagine there is another side to this story, I have never seen it used like this for someone who is working. Questions remain about why this conservatorship has gone on for 13 years.”
Dr. Nelson believes that the current California laws leave room for abuse. “If the children of a wealthy parent observes the parent spending their inheritance in a way they don’t approve of, they can claim the parent is impaired and needs to be conserved. Usually it doesn’t work, but it’s possible there are times when the courts are swayed.”
Why does it matter and why should psychiatrists be concerned? The issue of involuntary treatment is a contentious one, and the stakeholders on all sides are vocal when it comes to our country’s sickest and most vulnerable individuals. Any story with a whiff of abuse, or of someone who is not severely impaired being denied basic civil rights – including the right to refuse treatment – dilutes and stains the efforts of those who are trying to protect people who suffer from chronic psychotic disorders. And when society reaches further to say that an individual is not entitled to make their own basic life decisions, this further stigmatizes those with psychiatric illnesses. And people with both mental illnesses and substance use disorders often get better, so why would conservatorships be permanent?
Does our society want the courts to protect people from their own poor judgment? Should there be judges at every casino entrance? Where are the conservators for those who live in the streets? Again, this is a half-told story, one where the potential for abuse of the conserved remains a high risk, and the long-term message about involuntary care is one of taking a way a person’s rights unnecessarily.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. She has no disclosures.
The public has watched the ongoing drama unfold in the media for the past 13 years. In 2008, pop star Britney Spears was placed on conservatorship – a court process that gave decision-making powers over her personal, legal, and financial decisions to another person.
On June 23, 2021, Ms. Spears announced in open court that she is traumatized by being conserved and wants her rights back, but we know little about what behaviors left her family and a judge to determine that she was not capable of managing her own affairs, and why this would remain the case for so many years.
Adam Nelson, MD, practices psychiatry in Marin County, Calif. He explained in an interview that there are different types of conservatorships. “Probate conservatorship is the traditional path for conservatorship of person, estate, and/or finances based on evidence of incapacity due to any medical condition. This is the type of conservatorship that Britney Spears has had and which she is now contesting.”
Ms. Spears was placed on conservatorship after two involuntary hospitalizations for psychiatric illness and/or substance abuse. Her father, Jamie Spears, was appointed by the court to be her conservator.
In a New York Times article, reporters Liz Day, Samantha Stark, and Joe Coscarelli recently wrote: “But now, confidential court records obtained by the New York Times reveal that Ms. Spears, 39, expressed serious opposition to the conservatorship earlier and more often than had previously been known, and said that it restricted everything from whom she dated to the color of her kitchen cabinets.” The article goes on to say: “The newly obtained court records show that Ms. Spears questioned [her father’s] fitness for the role. As early as 2014, in a hearing closed to the public, Ms. Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, said she wanted to explore removing her father as conservator, citing his drinking, among other objections on a ‘shopping list’ of grievances.
“As the fight drags on, the bills are piling up – and, in a quirk of the conservatorship system, Ms. Spears has to pay for lawyers on both sides, including those arguing against her wishes in court. A recent $890,000 bill from one set of Mr. Spears’s lawyers, covering about 4 months of work, included media strategizing for defending the conservatorship.”
The case heated up at the June 23 hearing, when Ms. Spears had a telephone hearing with Los Angeles probate Judge Brenda Penney. The call was transcribed and published in Variety. The purpose of the hearing was for Ms. Spears to request an expedited release from her conservatorship without a psychiatric evaluation.
Ms. Spears began her 23-minute testimony to the judge by discussing her work and how she felt compelled to perform. “My management said, if I don’t do this tour, I will have to find an attorney, and by contract my own management could sue me if I didn’t follow through with the tour. ... So out of fear, I went ahead and I did the tour.”
She then discussed concerns by her manager that she was not complying with her medication regimen.
“Three days later, after I said no to Vegas,” Ms. Spears continued, “my therapist sat me down in a room and said he had a million phone calls about how I was not cooperating in rehearsals, and I haven’t been taking my medication. All this was false. He immediately, the next day, put me on lithium out of nowhere. He took me off my normal meds I’ve been on for 5 years. ... There were six different nurses in my home and they wouldn’t let me get in my car to go anywhere for a month.”
She spoke about entering rehab at the insistence of the conservatorship, and relayed her distress about this experience. She talked poignantly about her frustration of feeling she was not being heard by the court the last time she spoke and about the financial conflicts of interest created by her conservatorship. Ms. Spears, who has appeared on national television, recorded albums, and gone on performance tours during this period, has a net worth estimated at $60 million.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve owned my money. And it’s my wish and my dream for all of this to end without being tested,” she told the judge. “Again, it makes no sense whatsoever for the state of California to sit back and literally watch me with their own two eyes, make a living for so many people, and pay so many people trucks and buses on the road with me and be told, I’m not good enough. But I’m great at what I do. And I allow these people to control what I do, ma’am. And it’s enough. It makes no sense at all.”
Finally, Ms. Spears expressed a heart-wrenching desire to have another child and she asserted that the conservatorship will not allow her to see a doctor to have her IUD removed. She talked about being required to go to therapy three times a week and contended that she is traumatized by all that has transpired.
Ms. Spears has not filed the necessary paperwork to have her conservatorship ended. In an interview with Vice, attorney Scott Rahn noted that the process to end conservatorship can be a lengthy and difficult path. To do so, she might first need to petition the court to be allowed to hire her own attorney. If uncontested, the conservatorship could possibly be ended within months, but otherwise this could entail a lengthy trial over the course of years. While ending conservatorship may entail discovery, depositions, and hearings over years, a scathing story in the New Yorker detailed how Ms. Spears was placed into this conservatorship in a matter of days, without being present to give her own testimony. In the usual circumstances, California law requires that the person being conserved must be given 5 days’ notice before a conservatorship takes place, but Ms. Spears was deemed to be at risk of substantial harm and the judge allowed for an immediate conservatorship. The article notes that even axe murderers are allowed to hire lawyers, while those placed in conservatorships are not.
Reasoning behind such actions
Often, people are appointed guardians, conservators, or payees because of concerns that their psychiatric or substance use disorders, dementia, or impaired intellectual states lead them to poor decisions that endanger their financial stability. Usually the money they may lose is from a government disability benefit, an inheritance, or former accrued wealth. In this unusual celebrity case, Britney Spears has been conserved while she maintained a rigorous work schedule and actively earned the money she is being protected from spending.
Dr. Nelson talked about how people come to be conserved. “The law regarding conservatorship is a state law, but conservatorships in California are done at the county level, and the counties don’t have a vested interest in protecting people from themselves unless a third party or a family member comes forward. I imagine there is another side to this story, I have never seen it used like this for someone who is working. Questions remain about why this conservatorship has gone on for 13 years.”
Dr. Nelson believes that the current California laws leave room for abuse. “If the children of a wealthy parent observes the parent spending their inheritance in a way they don’t approve of, they can claim the parent is impaired and needs to be conserved. Usually it doesn’t work, but it’s possible there are times when the courts are swayed.”
Why does it matter and why should psychiatrists be concerned? The issue of involuntary treatment is a contentious one, and the stakeholders on all sides are vocal when it comes to our country’s sickest and most vulnerable individuals. Any story with a whiff of abuse, or of someone who is not severely impaired being denied basic civil rights – including the right to refuse treatment – dilutes and stains the efforts of those who are trying to protect people who suffer from chronic psychotic disorders. And when society reaches further to say that an individual is not entitled to make their own basic life decisions, this further stigmatizes those with psychiatric illnesses. And people with both mental illnesses and substance use disorders often get better, so why would conservatorships be permanent?
Does our society want the courts to protect people from their own poor judgment? Should there be judges at every casino entrance? Where are the conservators for those who live in the streets? Again, this is a half-told story, one where the potential for abuse of the conserved remains a high risk, and the long-term message about involuntary care is one of taking a way a person’s rights unnecessarily.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore. She has no disclosures.
Naomi Osaka withdraws from the French Open: When athletes struggle
In 2018, when Naomi Osaka won the U.S. Open by defeating Serena Williams, the trophy ceremony was painful to watch.
Ms. Williams had argued with an umpire over a controversial call, and the ceremony began with the crowd booing. Ms. Osaka, the victor, cried while Ms. Williams comforted her and quietly assured Ms. Osaka that the crowd was not booing at her. When asked how her dream of playing against Ms. Williams compared with the reality, the new champion, looking anything but victorious, responded: “Umm, I’m gonna sort of defer from your question, I’m sorry. I know that everyone was cheering for her, and I’m sorry it had to end like this.”
It was hardly the joyous moment it should have been in this young tennis player’s life.
Ms. Osaka, now 23, entered this year’s French Open as the Women’s Tennis Association’s second-ranked player and as the highest-paid female athlete of all time. She is known for her support of Black Lives Matter. Ms. Osaka announced that she would not be attending press conferences in an Instagram post days before the competition began. “If the organizations think they can keep saying, ‘do press or you’re going to get fined,’ and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh,” Ms. Osaka posted.
She was fined $15,000 on Sunday, May 30, when she did not appear at a press conference after winning her first match. Officials noted that she would be subjected to higher fines and expulsion from the tournament if she did not attend the mandatory media briefings. On June 1, Ms. Osaka withdrew from the French Open and explained her reasons on Instagram in a post where she announced that she has been struggling with depression and social anxiety and did not mean to become a distraction for the competition.
Psychiatrists weigh in
Sue Kim, MD, a psychiatrist who both plays and watches tennis, brought up Ms. Osaka’s resignation for discussion on the Maryland Psychiatric Society’s listserv. “[Ms.] Osaka put out on social media her depression and wanted to have rules reviewed and revised by the governing body of tennis, for future occasions. I feel it is so unfortunate and unfair and I am interested in hearing your opinions.”
Yusuke Sagawa, MD, a psychiatrist and tennis fan, wrote in: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, I rekindled my interest in tennis and I followed what transpired this past weekend. Naomi Osaka is an exceptionally shy and introverted person. I have noted that her speech is somewhat akin to (for lack of a better term) ‘Valley Girl’ talk, and from reading comments on tennis-related blogs, it appears she has garnered a significant amount of hatred as a result. Most of it is along the lines of people feeling her shyness and modesty is simply a masquerade.
“I have also seen YouTube videos of her signing autographs for fans. She is cooperative and pleasant, but clearly uncomfortable around large groups of people.
“Having seen many press conferences after a match,” Dr. Sagawa continued, “tennis journalists have a penchant for asking questions that are either personal or seemingly an attempt to stir up acrimony amongst players. Whatever the case, I truly do believe that this is not some sort of ruse on her part, and I hope that people come to her defense. It is disturbing to hear the comments already coming out from the ‘big names’ in the sport that have mostly been nonsupportive. Fortunately, there have also been a number of her contemporaries who have expressed this support for her.”
In the days following Ms. Osaka’s departure from the French Open, the situation has become more complex. as it is used in these types of communications.
Maryland psychiatrist Erik Roskes, MD, wrote: “I have followed this story from a distance and what strikes me is the intermixing of athleticism – which is presumably why we watch sports – and entertainment, the money-making part of it. The athletes are both athletes and entertainers, and [Ms.] Osaka seems to be unable to fully fulfill the latter part due to her unique traits. But like many, I wonder what if this had been Michael Phelps? Is there a gender issue at play?”
Stephanie Durruthy, MD, added: “[Ms.] Osaka brings complexity to the mental health conversations. There is no one answer to her current plight, but her being a person of color cannot be minimized. She magnified the race conversation in tennis to a higher level.
“When she was new to the Grand Slam scene, her Haitian, Japanese, and Black heritage became an issue with unending curiosity.
“[Ms.] Osaka used her platform during the 2020 U.S. Open to single-handedly highlight Black Lives Matter,” Dr. Durruthy continued. “Afterward, the tennis fans could not avoid seeing her face mask. In each match, she displayed another mask depicting the name of those killed. She described on social media her fears of being a Black person in America. The biases of gender and race are well described in the sports world.”
Lindsay Crouse wrote June 1 in the New York Times: “When Naomi Osaka dropped out of the French Open, after declining to attend media interviews that she said could trigger her anxiety, she wasn’t just protecting her mental health. She was sending a message to the establishment of one of the world’s most elite sports: I will not be controlled. This was a power move – and it packed more punch coming from a young woman of color. When the system hasn’t historically stood for you, why sacrifice yourself to uphold it? Especially when you have the power to change it instead.”
Professional sports are grueling on athletes, both physically and mentally. People will speculate about Ms. Osaka’s motives for refusing to participate in the media briefings that are mandated by her contract. Some will see it as manipulative, others as the desire of a young woman struggling with anxiety and depression to push back against a system that makes few allowances for those who suffer. As psychiatrists, we see how crippling these illnesses can be and admire those who achieve at these superhuman levels, often at the expense of their own well-being.
Dr. Kim, who started the MPS listserv discussion, ended it with: “I feel bad if Naomi Osaka needs to play a mental ‘illness’ card, as opposed to mental ‘wellness’ card.”
Let’s hope that Ms. Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open sparks more conversation about how to accommodate athletes as they endeavor to meet both the demands of their contracts and when it might be more appropriate to be flexible for those with individual struggles.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “ Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care ” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore.
In 2018, when Naomi Osaka won the U.S. Open by defeating Serena Williams, the trophy ceremony was painful to watch.
Ms. Williams had argued with an umpire over a controversial call, and the ceremony began with the crowd booing. Ms. Osaka, the victor, cried while Ms. Williams comforted her and quietly assured Ms. Osaka that the crowd was not booing at her. When asked how her dream of playing against Ms. Williams compared with the reality, the new champion, looking anything but victorious, responded: “Umm, I’m gonna sort of defer from your question, I’m sorry. I know that everyone was cheering for her, and I’m sorry it had to end like this.”
It was hardly the joyous moment it should have been in this young tennis player’s life.
Ms. Osaka, now 23, entered this year’s French Open as the Women’s Tennis Association’s second-ranked player and as the highest-paid female athlete of all time. She is known for her support of Black Lives Matter. Ms. Osaka announced that she would not be attending press conferences in an Instagram post days before the competition began. “If the organizations think they can keep saying, ‘do press or you’re going to get fined,’ and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh,” Ms. Osaka posted.
She was fined $15,000 on Sunday, May 30, when she did not appear at a press conference after winning her first match. Officials noted that she would be subjected to higher fines and expulsion from the tournament if she did not attend the mandatory media briefings. On June 1, Ms. Osaka withdrew from the French Open and explained her reasons on Instagram in a post where she announced that she has been struggling with depression and social anxiety and did not mean to become a distraction for the competition.
Psychiatrists weigh in
Sue Kim, MD, a psychiatrist who both plays and watches tennis, brought up Ms. Osaka’s resignation for discussion on the Maryland Psychiatric Society’s listserv. “[Ms.] Osaka put out on social media her depression and wanted to have rules reviewed and revised by the governing body of tennis, for future occasions. I feel it is so unfortunate and unfair and I am interested in hearing your opinions.”
Yusuke Sagawa, MD, a psychiatrist and tennis fan, wrote in: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, I rekindled my interest in tennis and I followed what transpired this past weekend. Naomi Osaka is an exceptionally shy and introverted person. I have noted that her speech is somewhat akin to (for lack of a better term) ‘Valley Girl’ talk, and from reading comments on tennis-related blogs, it appears she has garnered a significant amount of hatred as a result. Most of it is along the lines of people feeling her shyness and modesty is simply a masquerade.
“I have also seen YouTube videos of her signing autographs for fans. She is cooperative and pleasant, but clearly uncomfortable around large groups of people.
“Having seen many press conferences after a match,” Dr. Sagawa continued, “tennis journalists have a penchant for asking questions that are either personal or seemingly an attempt to stir up acrimony amongst players. Whatever the case, I truly do believe that this is not some sort of ruse on her part, and I hope that people come to her defense. It is disturbing to hear the comments already coming out from the ‘big names’ in the sport that have mostly been nonsupportive. Fortunately, there have also been a number of her contemporaries who have expressed this support for her.”
In the days following Ms. Osaka’s departure from the French Open, the situation has become more complex. as it is used in these types of communications.
Maryland psychiatrist Erik Roskes, MD, wrote: “I have followed this story from a distance and what strikes me is the intermixing of athleticism – which is presumably why we watch sports – and entertainment, the money-making part of it. The athletes are both athletes and entertainers, and [Ms.] Osaka seems to be unable to fully fulfill the latter part due to her unique traits. But like many, I wonder what if this had been Michael Phelps? Is there a gender issue at play?”
Stephanie Durruthy, MD, added: “[Ms.] Osaka brings complexity to the mental health conversations. There is no one answer to her current plight, but her being a person of color cannot be minimized. She magnified the race conversation in tennis to a higher level.
“When she was new to the Grand Slam scene, her Haitian, Japanese, and Black heritage became an issue with unending curiosity.
“[Ms.] Osaka used her platform during the 2020 U.S. Open to single-handedly highlight Black Lives Matter,” Dr. Durruthy continued. “Afterward, the tennis fans could not avoid seeing her face mask. In each match, she displayed another mask depicting the name of those killed. She described on social media her fears of being a Black person in America. The biases of gender and race are well described in the sports world.”
Lindsay Crouse wrote June 1 in the New York Times: “When Naomi Osaka dropped out of the French Open, after declining to attend media interviews that she said could trigger her anxiety, she wasn’t just protecting her mental health. She was sending a message to the establishment of one of the world’s most elite sports: I will not be controlled. This was a power move – and it packed more punch coming from a young woman of color. When the system hasn’t historically stood for you, why sacrifice yourself to uphold it? Especially when you have the power to change it instead.”
Professional sports are grueling on athletes, both physically and mentally. People will speculate about Ms. Osaka’s motives for refusing to participate in the media briefings that are mandated by her contract. Some will see it as manipulative, others as the desire of a young woman struggling with anxiety and depression to push back against a system that makes few allowances for those who suffer. As psychiatrists, we see how crippling these illnesses can be and admire those who achieve at these superhuman levels, often at the expense of their own well-being.
Dr. Kim, who started the MPS listserv discussion, ended it with: “I feel bad if Naomi Osaka needs to play a mental ‘illness’ card, as opposed to mental ‘wellness’ card.”
Let’s hope that Ms. Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open sparks more conversation about how to accommodate athletes as they endeavor to meet both the demands of their contracts and when it might be more appropriate to be flexible for those with individual struggles.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “ Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care ” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore.
In 2018, when Naomi Osaka won the U.S. Open by defeating Serena Williams, the trophy ceremony was painful to watch.
Ms. Williams had argued with an umpire over a controversial call, and the ceremony began with the crowd booing. Ms. Osaka, the victor, cried while Ms. Williams comforted her and quietly assured Ms. Osaka that the crowd was not booing at her. When asked how her dream of playing against Ms. Williams compared with the reality, the new champion, looking anything but victorious, responded: “Umm, I’m gonna sort of defer from your question, I’m sorry. I know that everyone was cheering for her, and I’m sorry it had to end like this.”
It was hardly the joyous moment it should have been in this young tennis player’s life.
Ms. Osaka, now 23, entered this year’s French Open as the Women’s Tennis Association’s second-ranked player and as the highest-paid female athlete of all time. She is known for her support of Black Lives Matter. Ms. Osaka announced that she would not be attending press conferences in an Instagram post days before the competition began. “If the organizations think they can keep saying, ‘do press or you’re going to get fined,’ and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh,” Ms. Osaka posted.
She was fined $15,000 on Sunday, May 30, when she did not appear at a press conference after winning her first match. Officials noted that she would be subjected to higher fines and expulsion from the tournament if she did not attend the mandatory media briefings. On June 1, Ms. Osaka withdrew from the French Open and explained her reasons on Instagram in a post where she announced that she has been struggling with depression and social anxiety and did not mean to become a distraction for the competition.
Psychiatrists weigh in
Sue Kim, MD, a psychiatrist who both plays and watches tennis, brought up Ms. Osaka’s resignation for discussion on the Maryland Psychiatric Society’s listserv. “[Ms.] Osaka put out on social media her depression and wanted to have rules reviewed and revised by the governing body of tennis, for future occasions. I feel it is so unfortunate and unfair and I am interested in hearing your opinions.”
Yusuke Sagawa, MD, a psychiatrist and tennis fan, wrote in: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, I rekindled my interest in tennis and I followed what transpired this past weekend. Naomi Osaka is an exceptionally shy and introverted person. I have noted that her speech is somewhat akin to (for lack of a better term) ‘Valley Girl’ talk, and from reading comments on tennis-related blogs, it appears she has garnered a significant amount of hatred as a result. Most of it is along the lines of people feeling her shyness and modesty is simply a masquerade.
“I have also seen YouTube videos of her signing autographs for fans. She is cooperative and pleasant, but clearly uncomfortable around large groups of people.
“Having seen many press conferences after a match,” Dr. Sagawa continued, “tennis journalists have a penchant for asking questions that are either personal or seemingly an attempt to stir up acrimony amongst players. Whatever the case, I truly do believe that this is not some sort of ruse on her part, and I hope that people come to her defense. It is disturbing to hear the comments already coming out from the ‘big names’ in the sport that have mostly been nonsupportive. Fortunately, there have also been a number of her contemporaries who have expressed this support for her.”
In the days following Ms. Osaka’s departure from the French Open, the situation has become more complex. as it is used in these types of communications.
Maryland psychiatrist Erik Roskes, MD, wrote: “I have followed this story from a distance and what strikes me is the intermixing of athleticism – which is presumably why we watch sports – and entertainment, the money-making part of it. The athletes are both athletes and entertainers, and [Ms.] Osaka seems to be unable to fully fulfill the latter part due to her unique traits. But like many, I wonder what if this had been Michael Phelps? Is there a gender issue at play?”
Stephanie Durruthy, MD, added: “[Ms.] Osaka brings complexity to the mental health conversations. There is no one answer to her current plight, but her being a person of color cannot be minimized. She magnified the race conversation in tennis to a higher level.
“When she was new to the Grand Slam scene, her Haitian, Japanese, and Black heritage became an issue with unending curiosity.
“[Ms.] Osaka used her platform during the 2020 U.S. Open to single-handedly highlight Black Lives Matter,” Dr. Durruthy continued. “Afterward, the tennis fans could not avoid seeing her face mask. In each match, she displayed another mask depicting the name of those killed. She described on social media her fears of being a Black person in America. The biases of gender and race are well described in the sports world.”
Lindsay Crouse wrote June 1 in the New York Times: “When Naomi Osaka dropped out of the French Open, after declining to attend media interviews that she said could trigger her anxiety, she wasn’t just protecting her mental health. She was sending a message to the establishment of one of the world’s most elite sports: I will not be controlled. This was a power move – and it packed more punch coming from a young woman of color. When the system hasn’t historically stood for you, why sacrifice yourself to uphold it? Especially when you have the power to change it instead.”
Professional sports are grueling on athletes, both physically and mentally. People will speculate about Ms. Osaka’s motives for refusing to participate in the media briefings that are mandated by her contract. Some will see it as manipulative, others as the desire of a young woman struggling with anxiety and depression to push back against a system that makes few allowances for those who suffer. As psychiatrists, we see how crippling these illnesses can be and admire those who achieve at these superhuman levels, often at the expense of their own well-being.
Dr. Kim, who started the MPS listserv discussion, ended it with: “I feel bad if Naomi Osaka needs to play a mental ‘illness’ card, as opposed to mental ‘wellness’ card.”
Let’s hope that Ms. Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open sparks more conversation about how to accommodate athletes as they endeavor to meet both the demands of their contracts and when it might be more appropriate to be flexible for those with individual struggles.
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “ Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care ” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore.
Virtual APA vs. the real thing: Which is better?
Every spring, I look forward to attending the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting. It has become a ritual that starts many months before the actual conference.
Submissions for presentations are due in September, so the planning often starts in the late summer. Hotel and plane reservations are made in January, and the meeting itself begins in May.
The city that hosts the event changes each year but, for me, many things do not. The Clinical Psychiatry News editorial board meeting takes place on Monday morning at 7 a.m., and I scour the program for what sessions to attend. In recent years, I have made a point of writing an article for about one of the sessions while still at the meeting – in 2019 I wrote about the improv-acting workshops I attended – something that just doesn’t translate to a Zoom experience.
I go with the same friend every year, I always attend the Hopkins alumni reception, and I organize dinner at a nice restaurant for friends. I have collected so many funny stories and memories over the years that it would be hard to catalog them all. There was the time in Toronto that I set up a meal at a restaurant named Susur – a meal like no other I’ve ever had – and the check arrived with a jaw-dropping sum that I had not anticipated. In San Diego, we watched a gorgeous sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the veranda of the Hotel Coronado. There was the time I sunbathed on the beach in Waikiki with my book editor, and the notable distress when my colleague’s husband called from the airport to say he was not permitted to board his plane in Baltimore to join us in California! There are funny stories, but there is the sadness that one friend who joined us for so many of these events has died.
I always find the program options to be overwhelming: There is so much going on at once that it can be hard to decide what to go to. I try to attend a mix of sessions, some that are inspiring or entertaining, and others that will be informative for clinical issues.
The speakers have been incredible and over the years I’ve heard then-Vice President Joseph Biden, retired quarterback Terry Bradshaw, Oliver Sacks, Alan Alda, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and perhaps my favorite – Lorraine Bracco, the actress who played Dr. Melfi on “The Sopranos” – to name just a few. And, of course, the opportunity to get the continuing medical education credits I need for licensing is just one more reason to attend.
Last year in May I was still adjusting to my “new” career from home with a computer screen. I had been scheduled to participate in several panels for the meeting in Philadelphia, but extra computer hours had no appeal. And while the fatigue of doing telemental health has eased, I still avoid extra hours interacting with my computer screen and I did not attend this year’s meeting. Without the lure of friends, fun, and the novelty of being somewhere new, my APA experience would have to wait for real life.
Virtual APA has had a drop in participation. In 2019, the last real-life convention in San Francisco, there were 700 scientific sessions and 11,000 professionals in attendance. This year’s virtual conference hosted 135 sessions with more than 7,000 attendees. Attendance was down, but so were costs associated with live conventions and
Tom Abdallah is a medical student at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar in Education City. He has never attended an in-person APA annual meeting, but he joined for this year’s virtual sessions. “The scientific sessions were fantastic and diverse. Networking was limited in comparison to in-person conferences. The meeting was very well organized, and it gave me the opportunity to attend without worrying about travel.”
Steven Daviss, MD, a psychiatrist in Maryland, also commented on the ease and financial benefit of attending the meeting from his home office. He calculated that the cost was much less: $350 for virtual APA, compared with approximately $3,500 for the real thing, allowing for transportation, hotels, meals out, and lost income. “But,” said Dr. Daviss, “engagement with colleagues was minimal.”
APA Assembly member Annette Hanson, MD, has continued to go into work throughout the pandemic. Still, she noted that meetings and committee work have made sure she does not miss out on the “Zoom fatigue” that everyone else is feeling. The virtual APA was tiring for her.
“It was brutal. There was the APA Assembly 1 weekend, right after evening Zoom reference committee meetings the week before. Then virtual APA the next weekend. By the end of the week, I had worked every day for 3 weeks straight, including my more-than-full-time job!”
It has been a challenging time, to say the least, and it has certainly helped that videoconferencing has allowed us to be there for our patients and for each other in so many different circumstances. Former APA President Paul Summergrad, MD, talked about how virtual meetings can be very good as educational tools, but he conveyed what I have been feeling in a sentence: “I miss the social aspect of meetings.”
Please get your vaccine, and I hope to see you in New Orleans next May!
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.
Every spring, I look forward to attending the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting. It has become a ritual that starts many months before the actual conference.
Submissions for presentations are due in September, so the planning often starts in the late summer. Hotel and plane reservations are made in January, and the meeting itself begins in May.
The city that hosts the event changes each year but, for me, many things do not. The Clinical Psychiatry News editorial board meeting takes place on Monday morning at 7 a.m., and I scour the program for what sessions to attend. In recent years, I have made a point of writing an article for about one of the sessions while still at the meeting – in 2019 I wrote about the improv-acting workshops I attended – something that just doesn’t translate to a Zoom experience.
I go with the same friend every year, I always attend the Hopkins alumni reception, and I organize dinner at a nice restaurant for friends. I have collected so many funny stories and memories over the years that it would be hard to catalog them all. There was the time in Toronto that I set up a meal at a restaurant named Susur – a meal like no other I’ve ever had – and the check arrived with a jaw-dropping sum that I had not anticipated. In San Diego, we watched a gorgeous sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the veranda of the Hotel Coronado. There was the time I sunbathed on the beach in Waikiki with my book editor, and the notable distress when my colleague’s husband called from the airport to say he was not permitted to board his plane in Baltimore to join us in California! There are funny stories, but there is the sadness that one friend who joined us for so many of these events has died.
I always find the program options to be overwhelming: There is so much going on at once that it can be hard to decide what to go to. I try to attend a mix of sessions, some that are inspiring or entertaining, and others that will be informative for clinical issues.
The speakers have been incredible and over the years I’ve heard then-Vice President Joseph Biden, retired quarterback Terry Bradshaw, Oliver Sacks, Alan Alda, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and perhaps my favorite – Lorraine Bracco, the actress who played Dr. Melfi on “The Sopranos” – to name just a few. And, of course, the opportunity to get the continuing medical education credits I need for licensing is just one more reason to attend.
Last year in May I was still adjusting to my “new” career from home with a computer screen. I had been scheduled to participate in several panels for the meeting in Philadelphia, but extra computer hours had no appeal. And while the fatigue of doing telemental health has eased, I still avoid extra hours interacting with my computer screen and I did not attend this year’s meeting. Without the lure of friends, fun, and the novelty of being somewhere new, my APA experience would have to wait for real life.
Virtual APA has had a drop in participation. In 2019, the last real-life convention in San Francisco, there were 700 scientific sessions and 11,000 professionals in attendance. This year’s virtual conference hosted 135 sessions with more than 7,000 attendees. Attendance was down, but so were costs associated with live conventions and
Tom Abdallah is a medical student at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar in Education City. He has never attended an in-person APA annual meeting, but he joined for this year’s virtual sessions. “The scientific sessions were fantastic and diverse. Networking was limited in comparison to in-person conferences. The meeting was very well organized, and it gave me the opportunity to attend without worrying about travel.”
Steven Daviss, MD, a psychiatrist in Maryland, also commented on the ease and financial benefit of attending the meeting from his home office. He calculated that the cost was much less: $350 for virtual APA, compared with approximately $3,500 for the real thing, allowing for transportation, hotels, meals out, and lost income. “But,” said Dr. Daviss, “engagement with colleagues was minimal.”
APA Assembly member Annette Hanson, MD, has continued to go into work throughout the pandemic. Still, she noted that meetings and committee work have made sure she does not miss out on the “Zoom fatigue” that everyone else is feeling. The virtual APA was tiring for her.
“It was brutal. There was the APA Assembly 1 weekend, right after evening Zoom reference committee meetings the week before. Then virtual APA the next weekend. By the end of the week, I had worked every day for 3 weeks straight, including my more-than-full-time job!”
It has been a challenging time, to say the least, and it has certainly helped that videoconferencing has allowed us to be there for our patients and for each other in so many different circumstances. Former APA President Paul Summergrad, MD, talked about how virtual meetings can be very good as educational tools, but he conveyed what I have been feeling in a sentence: “I miss the social aspect of meetings.”
Please get your vaccine, and I hope to see you in New Orleans next May!
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.
Every spring, I look forward to attending the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting. It has become a ritual that starts many months before the actual conference.
Submissions for presentations are due in September, so the planning often starts in the late summer. Hotel and plane reservations are made in January, and the meeting itself begins in May.
The city that hosts the event changes each year but, for me, many things do not. The Clinical Psychiatry News editorial board meeting takes place on Monday morning at 7 a.m., and I scour the program for what sessions to attend. In recent years, I have made a point of writing an article for about one of the sessions while still at the meeting – in 2019 I wrote about the improv-acting workshops I attended – something that just doesn’t translate to a Zoom experience.
I go with the same friend every year, I always attend the Hopkins alumni reception, and I organize dinner at a nice restaurant for friends. I have collected so many funny stories and memories over the years that it would be hard to catalog them all. There was the time in Toronto that I set up a meal at a restaurant named Susur – a meal like no other I’ve ever had – and the check arrived with a jaw-dropping sum that I had not anticipated. In San Diego, we watched a gorgeous sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the veranda of the Hotel Coronado. There was the time I sunbathed on the beach in Waikiki with my book editor, and the notable distress when my colleague’s husband called from the airport to say he was not permitted to board his plane in Baltimore to join us in California! There are funny stories, but there is the sadness that one friend who joined us for so many of these events has died.
I always find the program options to be overwhelming: There is so much going on at once that it can be hard to decide what to go to. I try to attend a mix of sessions, some that are inspiring or entertaining, and others that will be informative for clinical issues.
The speakers have been incredible and over the years I’ve heard then-Vice President Joseph Biden, retired quarterback Terry Bradshaw, Oliver Sacks, Alan Alda, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and perhaps my favorite – Lorraine Bracco, the actress who played Dr. Melfi on “The Sopranos” – to name just a few. And, of course, the opportunity to get the continuing medical education credits I need for licensing is just one more reason to attend.
Last year in May I was still adjusting to my “new” career from home with a computer screen. I had been scheduled to participate in several panels for the meeting in Philadelphia, but extra computer hours had no appeal. And while the fatigue of doing telemental health has eased, I still avoid extra hours interacting with my computer screen and I did not attend this year’s meeting. Without the lure of friends, fun, and the novelty of being somewhere new, my APA experience would have to wait for real life.
Virtual APA has had a drop in participation. In 2019, the last real-life convention in San Francisco, there were 700 scientific sessions and 11,000 professionals in attendance. This year’s virtual conference hosted 135 sessions with more than 7,000 attendees. Attendance was down, but so were costs associated with live conventions and
Tom Abdallah is a medical student at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar in Education City. He has never attended an in-person APA annual meeting, but he joined for this year’s virtual sessions. “The scientific sessions were fantastic and diverse. Networking was limited in comparison to in-person conferences. The meeting was very well organized, and it gave me the opportunity to attend without worrying about travel.”
Steven Daviss, MD, a psychiatrist in Maryland, also commented on the ease and financial benefit of attending the meeting from his home office. He calculated that the cost was much less: $350 for virtual APA, compared with approximately $3,500 for the real thing, allowing for transportation, hotels, meals out, and lost income. “But,” said Dr. Daviss, “engagement with colleagues was minimal.”
APA Assembly member Annette Hanson, MD, has continued to go into work throughout the pandemic. Still, she noted that meetings and committee work have made sure she does not miss out on the “Zoom fatigue” that everyone else is feeling. The virtual APA was tiring for her.
“It was brutal. There was the APA Assembly 1 weekend, right after evening Zoom reference committee meetings the week before. Then virtual APA the next weekend. By the end of the week, I had worked every day for 3 weeks straight, including my more-than-full-time job!”
It has been a challenging time, to say the least, and it has certainly helped that videoconferencing has allowed us to be there for our patients and for each other in so many different circumstances. Former APA President Paul Summergrad, MD, talked about how virtual meetings can be very good as educational tools, but he conveyed what I have been feeling in a sentence: “I miss the social aspect of meetings.”
Please get your vaccine, and I hope to see you in New Orleans next May!
Dr. Miller is coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.
Let me tell you about my vaccine
Welcome to our national obsession: Vaccines! You may have noticed – it’s all talk, all the time, with short breaks to discuss what we’re watching on Netflix.
For months, every session with almost every patient includes a commentary on someone they know who has gotten “the shot.” Before our state expanded eligibility to all adults, the discussion might include thoughts about who deserves to go first, who “cut the line,” how they did it, what vaccine is best, and worries about side effects.
And it’s not just my patients: With every friend, with every acquaintance, and even just walking by strangers who are conversing, the topic of discussion is vaccines. The narratives are similar; people want to talk about who has gotten vaccinated, why they qualified, where they went, which one they got, and what side effects they experienced. This is followed by a discussion about what they are now doing that they weren’t doing before being vaccinated, if anything. Some have returned to indoor restaurant dining, others only dine outdoors, still others continue to avoid public settings. There are the fully vaccinated, the partially vaccinated, and those scheduled for the first shot. In the unvaccinated/unregistered group there are the vaccine-hesitants and vaccine-refusers, with their concerns about everything from the safety of the agent to whether the government is using this as a way to insert tracker chips into all of us. There is enthusiasm, trepidation, anxiety, fear, excitement, relief, and absolute joy.
Recently I opened two emails from old friends I have not communicated with in a long time. Both emails began with, “I am fully vaccinated.” And yes, I heard the status of his wife and two children. In the course of one work day, I received distressed text messages from two patients about vaccines – one was anxious about having received the Janssen vaccine that was paused that morning, another was worried about getting a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine later in the week because he was having a symptom that could be indicative of COVID-19. I suggested that his primary care physician might be a better resource for this, but then added that he should probably get tested and delay having the second dose if positive. It seems I did have thoughts about a course of action after all.
Some psychiatrists have wondered how to handle patient questions about their own vaccination status. I have taken the stance that we are physicians, and that patients who may be seeing us – now or in the future – for in-person appointments are entitled to know if we pose a risk to their health, and so I have chosen to answer, without further exploration, when patients ask if I’ve received that coronavirus vaccine. Some psychiatrists feel it is our responsibility to share this information with our patients as a way of modeling safe behavior, and I have had one patient who said she would not be getting vaccinated until I told her that I thought she should.
“Did you get it?” she asked.
“I did,” I responded.
“Okay, if you got it, I will.” She soon discovered that vaccinations were hard to come by and that in her social group, being vaccinated was something of a status symbol. In addition to the worry about contracting a potentially fatal virus, her hesitancy yielded to “vaccine FOMO” or fear of missing out.
Some psychiatrists have felt uneasy with a question that pertains to their personal health, or have used the question as a springboard for exploration. Nicole Leistikow, MD (fully vaccinated, Moderna), is a psychiatrist in private practice in Baltimore. She notes, “Recently, I was discussing vaccination with a patient who wasn’t sure what information to believe or how much to trust the U.S. government. My careful exploration comparing different risks was not very helpful. I mentioned that I was vaccinated and that if he got vaccinated, he could come for a low-risk, in-person appointment after a year of telephone visits. This proved to be a winning argument and he called back later that day to say he had already had his first shot from leftover vaccine at his pharmacy.”
I grew up in a world that did not question vaccines. You got them and they were good things. No one asked which pharmaceutical company manufactured the vaccine. We trusted the system and our physicians. Schools asked for proof of vaccination, and it never occurred to me not to be vaccinated. Life has grown more complicated in the last 30 years, and the groups of people who are opposed to being vaccinated are more diverse. Those opposed to getting a COVID-19 vaccine are not necessarily the same as the broader group of anti-vaxxers that spawned from the fear that childhood vaccines cause autism. For some, it’s a personal issue related to their own health and risk perception, for others it’s a polarized political issue, and for another group there is the question of where their trust lies.
What lies ahead in our postvaccine world? This will be our next national conversation, and just as we negotiated our own levels of comfort with regard to working and socializing during the pandemic, I imagine the postvaccine world will have the same adjustment. There already are cases of COVID-19 in those who have been fully vaccinated, as well as the rare hospitalizations and deaths – we simply cannot expect a vaccine that did so well in controlled studies of tens of thousands of study subjects to do as well when given to tens of millions of uncontrolled citizens. One of the first deaths in a fully vaccinated person in late March was an older psychologist, and it remains unclear how effective the vaccine is for immunocompromised patients. Some people will play it very safe, eschewing all activities that entail risk, while others will choose to adhere to either their own intuition about what is safe, or to the recommendations of Anthony S. Fauci, MD, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I’ll end with a final thought from the Twitter feed of Ashish K. Jha, MD, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, Providence, R.I. Dr. Jha tweeted, “Once you get fully vaccinated, it absolutely changes what you can do safely.” It seems our national conversation is not slated to change anytime soon.
Dr. Miller is a coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.
Welcome to our national obsession: Vaccines! You may have noticed – it’s all talk, all the time, with short breaks to discuss what we’re watching on Netflix.
For months, every session with almost every patient includes a commentary on someone they know who has gotten “the shot.” Before our state expanded eligibility to all adults, the discussion might include thoughts about who deserves to go first, who “cut the line,” how they did it, what vaccine is best, and worries about side effects.
And it’s not just my patients: With every friend, with every acquaintance, and even just walking by strangers who are conversing, the topic of discussion is vaccines. The narratives are similar; people want to talk about who has gotten vaccinated, why they qualified, where they went, which one they got, and what side effects they experienced. This is followed by a discussion about what they are now doing that they weren’t doing before being vaccinated, if anything. Some have returned to indoor restaurant dining, others only dine outdoors, still others continue to avoid public settings. There are the fully vaccinated, the partially vaccinated, and those scheduled for the first shot. In the unvaccinated/unregistered group there are the vaccine-hesitants and vaccine-refusers, with their concerns about everything from the safety of the agent to whether the government is using this as a way to insert tracker chips into all of us. There is enthusiasm, trepidation, anxiety, fear, excitement, relief, and absolute joy.
Recently I opened two emails from old friends I have not communicated with in a long time. Both emails began with, “I am fully vaccinated.” And yes, I heard the status of his wife and two children. In the course of one work day, I received distressed text messages from two patients about vaccines – one was anxious about having received the Janssen vaccine that was paused that morning, another was worried about getting a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine later in the week because he was having a symptom that could be indicative of COVID-19. I suggested that his primary care physician might be a better resource for this, but then added that he should probably get tested and delay having the second dose if positive. It seems I did have thoughts about a course of action after all.
Some psychiatrists have wondered how to handle patient questions about their own vaccination status. I have taken the stance that we are physicians, and that patients who may be seeing us – now or in the future – for in-person appointments are entitled to know if we pose a risk to their health, and so I have chosen to answer, without further exploration, when patients ask if I’ve received that coronavirus vaccine. Some psychiatrists feel it is our responsibility to share this information with our patients as a way of modeling safe behavior, and I have had one patient who said she would not be getting vaccinated until I told her that I thought she should.
“Did you get it?” she asked.
“I did,” I responded.
“Okay, if you got it, I will.” She soon discovered that vaccinations were hard to come by and that in her social group, being vaccinated was something of a status symbol. In addition to the worry about contracting a potentially fatal virus, her hesitancy yielded to “vaccine FOMO” or fear of missing out.
Some psychiatrists have felt uneasy with a question that pertains to their personal health, or have used the question as a springboard for exploration. Nicole Leistikow, MD (fully vaccinated, Moderna), is a psychiatrist in private practice in Baltimore. She notes, “Recently, I was discussing vaccination with a patient who wasn’t sure what information to believe or how much to trust the U.S. government. My careful exploration comparing different risks was not very helpful. I mentioned that I was vaccinated and that if he got vaccinated, he could come for a low-risk, in-person appointment after a year of telephone visits. This proved to be a winning argument and he called back later that day to say he had already had his first shot from leftover vaccine at his pharmacy.”
I grew up in a world that did not question vaccines. You got them and they were good things. No one asked which pharmaceutical company manufactured the vaccine. We trusted the system and our physicians. Schools asked for proof of vaccination, and it never occurred to me not to be vaccinated. Life has grown more complicated in the last 30 years, and the groups of people who are opposed to being vaccinated are more diverse. Those opposed to getting a COVID-19 vaccine are not necessarily the same as the broader group of anti-vaxxers that spawned from the fear that childhood vaccines cause autism. For some, it’s a personal issue related to their own health and risk perception, for others it’s a polarized political issue, and for another group there is the question of where their trust lies.
What lies ahead in our postvaccine world? This will be our next national conversation, and just as we negotiated our own levels of comfort with regard to working and socializing during the pandemic, I imagine the postvaccine world will have the same adjustment. There already are cases of COVID-19 in those who have been fully vaccinated, as well as the rare hospitalizations and deaths – we simply cannot expect a vaccine that did so well in controlled studies of tens of thousands of study subjects to do as well when given to tens of millions of uncontrolled citizens. One of the first deaths in a fully vaccinated person in late March was an older psychologist, and it remains unclear how effective the vaccine is for immunocompromised patients. Some people will play it very safe, eschewing all activities that entail risk, while others will choose to adhere to either their own intuition about what is safe, or to the recommendations of Anthony S. Fauci, MD, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I’ll end with a final thought from the Twitter feed of Ashish K. Jha, MD, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, Providence, R.I. Dr. Jha tweeted, “Once you get fully vaccinated, it absolutely changes what you can do safely.” It seems our national conversation is not slated to change anytime soon.
Dr. Miller is a coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.
Welcome to our national obsession: Vaccines! You may have noticed – it’s all talk, all the time, with short breaks to discuss what we’re watching on Netflix.
For months, every session with almost every patient includes a commentary on someone they know who has gotten “the shot.” Before our state expanded eligibility to all adults, the discussion might include thoughts about who deserves to go first, who “cut the line,” how they did it, what vaccine is best, and worries about side effects.
And it’s not just my patients: With every friend, with every acquaintance, and even just walking by strangers who are conversing, the topic of discussion is vaccines. The narratives are similar; people want to talk about who has gotten vaccinated, why they qualified, where they went, which one they got, and what side effects they experienced. This is followed by a discussion about what they are now doing that they weren’t doing before being vaccinated, if anything. Some have returned to indoor restaurant dining, others only dine outdoors, still others continue to avoid public settings. There are the fully vaccinated, the partially vaccinated, and those scheduled for the first shot. In the unvaccinated/unregistered group there are the vaccine-hesitants and vaccine-refusers, with their concerns about everything from the safety of the agent to whether the government is using this as a way to insert tracker chips into all of us. There is enthusiasm, trepidation, anxiety, fear, excitement, relief, and absolute joy.
Recently I opened two emails from old friends I have not communicated with in a long time. Both emails began with, “I am fully vaccinated.” And yes, I heard the status of his wife and two children. In the course of one work day, I received distressed text messages from two patients about vaccines – one was anxious about having received the Janssen vaccine that was paused that morning, another was worried about getting a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine later in the week because he was having a symptom that could be indicative of COVID-19. I suggested that his primary care physician might be a better resource for this, but then added that he should probably get tested and delay having the second dose if positive. It seems I did have thoughts about a course of action after all.
Some psychiatrists have wondered how to handle patient questions about their own vaccination status. I have taken the stance that we are physicians, and that patients who may be seeing us – now or in the future – for in-person appointments are entitled to know if we pose a risk to their health, and so I have chosen to answer, without further exploration, when patients ask if I’ve received that coronavirus vaccine. Some psychiatrists feel it is our responsibility to share this information with our patients as a way of modeling safe behavior, and I have had one patient who said she would not be getting vaccinated until I told her that I thought she should.
“Did you get it?” she asked.
“I did,” I responded.
“Okay, if you got it, I will.” She soon discovered that vaccinations were hard to come by and that in her social group, being vaccinated was something of a status symbol. In addition to the worry about contracting a potentially fatal virus, her hesitancy yielded to “vaccine FOMO” or fear of missing out.
Some psychiatrists have felt uneasy with a question that pertains to their personal health, or have used the question as a springboard for exploration. Nicole Leistikow, MD (fully vaccinated, Moderna), is a psychiatrist in private practice in Baltimore. She notes, “Recently, I was discussing vaccination with a patient who wasn’t sure what information to believe or how much to trust the U.S. government. My careful exploration comparing different risks was not very helpful. I mentioned that I was vaccinated and that if he got vaccinated, he could come for a low-risk, in-person appointment after a year of telephone visits. This proved to be a winning argument and he called back later that day to say he had already had his first shot from leftover vaccine at his pharmacy.”
I grew up in a world that did not question vaccines. You got them and they were good things. No one asked which pharmaceutical company manufactured the vaccine. We trusted the system and our physicians. Schools asked for proof of vaccination, and it never occurred to me not to be vaccinated. Life has grown more complicated in the last 30 years, and the groups of people who are opposed to being vaccinated are more diverse. Those opposed to getting a COVID-19 vaccine are not necessarily the same as the broader group of anti-vaxxers that spawned from the fear that childhood vaccines cause autism. For some, it’s a personal issue related to their own health and risk perception, for others it’s a polarized political issue, and for another group there is the question of where their trust lies.
What lies ahead in our postvaccine world? This will be our next national conversation, and just as we negotiated our own levels of comfort with regard to working and socializing during the pandemic, I imagine the postvaccine world will have the same adjustment. There already are cases of COVID-19 in those who have been fully vaccinated, as well as the rare hospitalizations and deaths – we simply cannot expect a vaccine that did so well in controlled studies of tens of thousands of study subjects to do as well when given to tens of millions of uncontrolled citizens. One of the first deaths in a fully vaccinated person in late March was an older psychologist, and it remains unclear how effective the vaccine is for immunocompromised patients. Some people will play it very safe, eschewing all activities that entail risk, while others will choose to adhere to either their own intuition about what is safe, or to the recommendations of Anthony S. Fauci, MD, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I’ll end with a final thought from the Twitter feed of Ashish K. Jha, MD, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, Providence, R.I. Dr. Jha tweeted, “Once you get fully vaccinated, it absolutely changes what you can do safely.” It seems our national conversation is not slated to change anytime soon.
Dr. Miller is a coauthor of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.