April 20, 2012 H. Steven Moffic, MD
How many lawyers have read Robert Whitaker’s book “Anatomy of an Epidemic?" I wouldn’t be surprised if some “ambulance chasers” out there are already finding patients who may have been damaged, or at least a case could be made, by long-term psychiatric medications.
March 21, 2012 H. Steven Moffic, MD
We psychiatrists have an ethical prohibition called “The Goldwater Rule”. This states that we should not try to diagnose someone without examining them as a patient.
March 2, 2012 H. Steven Moffic, MD
To keep costs in control and thrive financially, ACOs and managed care companies will have to have the best business processes, and hopefully the best business ethics, in place. So can the success of the “Toyota Way” be generalized to our behavioral healthcare systems to make them more cost-effective? If so, how?
February 3, 2012 H. Steven Moffic, MD
As some Americans recognize February as "National African American History Month," too few of them, even in the field of behavioral health, pause to recognize the continued patterns of prejudice in diagnosis and treatment that make African American males far more likely to be diagnosed with serious mental illness or incarcerated for drug-possession offenses. It's time we took a look at that problem.
January 12, 2012 H. Steven Moffic, MD
If you are a behavioral healthcare administrator and were asked, “What do you consider your most challenging issues in your role?," how would you answer?
December 12, 2011 H. Steven Moffic, MD
A patient I had not seen for over a year, came back after a letter was sent to him about closing his file. He had been treated for Attention Deficit Disorder in the past, and wanted to know if I would again take over prescribing that medication from his primary care physician. That seemed reasonable enough, but, I wondered, why now?
October 10, 2011 H. Steven Moffic, MD
Now, I never, ever thought I’d be writing a blog on Steve Jobs. About all we seemed to have in common was his name. But were there aspects of his life that might be of particular relevance to psychiatry? Yes, I think there are.
October 4, 2011 H. Steven Moffic, MD
At our jobs, whether we are clinicians or administrators, we have many important decisions to make and many distractions over the course of the day. How can we avoid having our patients receiving poorer care as the day wears on, and how can we avoid making poorer administrative decisions when we are mentally tired?
August 30, 2011 H. Steven Moffic, MD
I usually don’t easily admit I was wrong. But I was wrong about peer specialists. As the profession started to emerge out of the larger consumer and recovery movement, I reluctantly went along. Prove it, I somewhat smugly said to myself.
July 26, 2011 H. Steven Moffic, MD
Mine recently was. And, will be again shortly. I am in-between two summer vacations. I’ve always thought vacations to be essential for maintaining whatever mental health I had. For me, that meant vacations as separate from work as possible: on-call as little as practical, no e-mails, and trying not to check in.
