Shrink Rap Today

Three psychiatrists explain their work.

by Steve Daviss, M.D., Annette Hanson, M.D., and Dinah Miller, M.D.

Search Me?

A psychiatrist asks questions about the policies regarding patient body searches. Read More

A reader recently sent me this comment: "Frankly, I have little respect for Forensic Psychiatry these days. It is a whore subspecialty until proven otherwise, as it is doing what is financially convenient for the MD and just making general psychiatrists pick up the messes." Read More

What Makes a Good Psychiatrist?

What characteristics make a psychiatrist good? Read More

Technology and the Psychiatrist: Welcome Siri?

An overview of technology and psychiatric practice with links to tech-specific blog posts. Inspired by Dinah's experiments with Siri in clinical practice. Read More

How Medicare Works for Psychiatrists and Why a 30% Cut Will Be Bad for Patients

Medicare Cuts and Psychiatry Read More

"Xanax Is My Favorite Palindrome"

Dinah described a New York Times piece last week about a Kentucky clinic that has been so overwhelmed by patients requesting and abusing this very addictive anxiety medication that they have banned it from their practice. Read More

Solitary Confinement: Rumor and Reality

Recently on our main Shrink Rap blog one of our readers asked me my thoughts about the use of solitary confinement in light of allegations that this can cause mental illness.

My short answer to this is, "Don't believe everything you read in the media about solitary confinement." Read More

Psychotherapy in Psychiatry: Still Around

Please note that this is one article in a 3 part simultaneous post. Please see Clinical Psychiatry News and Shrink Rap for the other two parts --links below.

The idea behind sharing patient data on a Health Information Exchange (HIE) is to make it easier for your doctor to share your health data with your cardiologist or psychologist. Patients should be the one to decide which elements of their health information should be treated with extra precautions and which should be considered routine, but ... Read More

Dr. Mojtabai on Understanding Psychotherapy Trends

How was that for the name of a blog post?

Over on our Clinical Psychiatry News blog, Anne Hanson and I have up some new articles we thought might interest readers on Psychology Today. Read More

Can I Hit Back?

One of the challenges of being a psychiatrist---and a forensic psychiatrist in particular---is that we are more likely to deal with patients who can become violent. Psychiatry residents are usually trained in violence risk assessment and management. In my own residency I recall having to go through training in "take down" and restraint procedures. Read More

The Shrink Rappers With Neal Conan on NPR's Talk of the Nation

On Tuesday, May 3rd at 3 PM Eastern time, tune in to NPR for Talk of the Nation with Roy and Dinah as guests (and Clink in spirit). It's a call-in show, and we'd love to hear from you.

And while we're at it:Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Workis now available on Amazon athttp://amzn.to/shrinkrap.

If that's not enough: Read More

Survey on Attitudes Towards Psychiatry

Please help us get a sense of the public sentiment towards psychiatry, psychiatrists, and patients with psychiatric problems by completing our survey. Read More

Should Psychiatrists See Patients for Psychotherapy?

The trend is for psychiatrists to see patients for psychiatric evaluation, treatment with medications, and a medicalized version of psychiatric care, while parceling out psychotherapy to non-MD psychotherapists-- social workers, psychologists, licensed clinical counselors, nurse therapists, pastoral counselors (and outside of official referrals, then anyone else who wants to listen...a bar Read More

Not Enough To Go Around

In a recent New York Times article entitled "Pharmacists Take Larger Role on Health Team", author Reed Abelson discusses pharmacies that are expanding their revenue by adding services to their usual role of dispensing medication. Read More

Running Out of Psychiatric Beds

Eastern Ontario has started a bed registry to keep track of where open psychiatric beds are available... EMTALA complaint because a patient sat in the ER all weekend... How many people with stroke or diabetes sit in ERs for days waiting to find a bed? Read More

The Psychiatrist as Therapist

Gardiner Harris had an article on the front page of the New York Times recently called Talk Doesn't Pay, So Psychiatrists Turn to Drugs. I thought I'd make the point that some psychiatrist still practice psychotherapy in combination with the responsible prescribing of medications.

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Shrink Rap Expanded--An Introduction

For the past (almost) five years, Steve Daviss (Roy), Anne Hanson (ClinkShrink) and I (Dinah) have been blogging together at Shrink Rap. What started as a whim developed into quite the project. Read More

Shrink Rap Today Bloggers

Steven Roy Daviss, M.D., is chair of Psychiatry at Baltimore Washington Medical Center, informatics and policy wonk for URAC, CCHIT, and an HIE, and co-author of Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work.

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Annette Hanson, M.D., is a forensic psychiatrist and co-author of Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work.

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Dinah Miller, M.D., is a psychiatrist and writer in Baltimore, Maryland. She is co-author of the book Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work.

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