As a psychiatrist I get a lot of jokes about how they need to schedule an appointment or jokingly ask me not to analyze them. Or the jokes about how I need to give them some pills for thier ‘crazy’ wife. Once I was getting a haircut and the barber went on a diatribe about how some people acutally need exorcisms…

I think about this as a psychiatrist working in the military bacause people often have strong opinions about psychiatry and especially in the military can be distrustfull due to the fear that psychiatrists make determinations about ‘fitness for duty’ and if someone can have access to their firearms. A lot of times I…

I think you mean.. tip your fedora and move on?

I would agree with you but I would give the benefit of the doubt that the reason for many of the practices being put into place stems from an honest belief that spending long hours residing in the hospital (residents) was the best way to educate doctors on the course of diseases. The reason these practices have stayed…

Thanks Bro! Actually I thought it was pertinent to why I could complete medical school (including surgery rotations) easily while still spending time with my family. I spent most of medical school and residency hiding that tests were easy for me becuase people (like you) would get wierdly upset and hostile due to…

I am a male physician who had one child before medical school, one during medical school and one during residency. I wouldn’t say it was easy but its way harder for women. I was lucky in that I am book smart and don’t need to spend as much time studying and I am in a more work-life balance friendly field- psychiatry.…

A lot of programs have a specific number of residents per year who split up the work load (time on call overnight for example). If one person quits for the year or takes a significant amount of time off this greatly increases the work load of the other residents. Most medical residencies are fairly rigid and designed…

This is a misunderstanding, I believe I can clarify. These are designer “leather” socks made from dried out uteruses (uteri?). The name is a reference to the latin for the material from which they come not the Victorian diagnosis.

As a psychiatrist I can say that this a disturbing trend. Most emotional support animals are pets that owners have spent money to get labeled as such in order to exploit the system and get around rules or out of fees. There is little scientific evidence for emotional support animals and in fact could actually make…

That’s the question, what is Niel Degrass Tyson hiding under there?

That’s what the “scientists” at NASA want you to think, but clearly you need something a little more sophisticated to get past those tricksters

If you want to look into there was a research study that looked into what happened to doomsday cults after the end of the world didn’t come on time. Believers ended up just doubling down on their beliefs- i.e. we just made a calculation error, the real date is ... I wouldn’t hold my breath for this guy to come around

It begs the question, does he actually believe this, or is he enjoying all the media coverage and is making a cash grab with no intent to send a satellite? It is of course possible that both are true..

I sincerely hope that any patient that I have who doesn’t really need medication and just needs a support animal stops seeing me immediately and gets an animal. On the other hand if any of my patients need actual psychiatric care I hope they receive it from a provider who practices evidence based treatment and doesn’t…

You might also call it a Full Metal Jacket problem, there’s been a lot of “anti-war” films which on some level tried to criticize violence but on another level glofified it and the films have been celebrated by soldiers and people enjoying war. It’s a problem that’s inherent to stories about violence, but I think it’s…

Umm...benzodiazepines ARE class of medications. They have the same mechanism of action but with varying pharmacokinetics. There is good evidence about their risks and benefit AS a class. BUT I guess my medical degree is no match for Dr Google..

It’s a good question. A lot of people report they benefit from pets. There’s some evidence for lower blood pressure for example and a good amount of anecdotal evidence but that is very different from any scientific evidence that there’s any benefit for emotional support animals beyond the benefit of just having a pet,…

As a psychiatrist who diagnoses and treats PTSD almost every day, I have some knowledge on the subject. I have personal knowledge of patients who have really benefitted from their pets, both in emotional support and motivation to get out of bed. And that is a great thing! But as a doctor I also practice evidence based…

Certainly the owner is implying that it is a service animal, which is what most people with emotional support animals do and try to conflate the two. I do not know which this is, but I suspect given the breed, that it was a pet which was labeled as an ESA or support dog, not raised and trained to be one.

As a psychiatrist working with active duty military and veterans I get asked by patients to support the use of “emotional support animals” and I do not. Often this is by patients who want to take their pets to restaurants or on planes or get out of paying fees. A lot of people benefit from being around their pets.…