Do you use an iPhone? If you do, you might want to at least be aware of the privacy issues you could face if your phone is lost or stolen. Likewise, if you’re up to no good and doing something that might land you in criminal or civil court, your iPhone probably has many secrets to tell, many of which you’re probably not aware. For those of you who work in law enforcement, awareness of this issue may help you to obtain additional evidence about a suspect.
But maybe you’re careful and ‘delete’ private information. You should be safe, right? Not so fast. The iPhone retains far more information than you’re probably aware of, and just because it’s in the deleted bin doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still exist somewhere deep within the phone.
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I’ve previously written about the Eric Cropp case. He was a pharmacist who was sent to prison for a mistake that resulted in the death of a child. This was a high profile case, but it was just one of many examples of a disturbing trend I’ve seen in the U.S. in recent years: a person commits a mistake–with no malicious intent and without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol–somebody then dies or is seriously injured as a result of the mistake. Because of the bad outcome, criminal charges are then filed, and the ‘perpetrator’ is often sent to prison.
I’m bringing up this issue because of a recent case that exemplifies my concern.
A recent AP article from Yahoo! News describes the recent tragedy. It happened at Extreme World, an amusement park in the Wisconsin Dells. Terminal Velocity is a ride where patrons free-fall about 100 feet into a net. The net is then lowered gently to the ground when the ride is over.
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In the prison setting, there’s no shortage of patients who, with our without mental illness, are very angry, see the world in a very paranoid manner, and say they can’t trust “the system.”
Since I saw this Saturday Night Live skit, I have one more coping skill that helps me to smile inside in the face of anger. Every time I hear complaints about “the system,” I just think of this video with Andy Samberg:
It’s no secret that many jail and prison inmates have problems with impulsive anger. To put it simply, they “snap” easily. They do not think about the consequences of their actions–they simply react quickly and violently to any situation in which they perceive even a slight threat to their egos or physical safety. Prisoners both with and without mental health histories have this problem.
While it’s true that the mentally ill often experience a reduction in anger problems when they are treated with psychiatric medications, Western society in general relies too much on medication to change behavior. One frequently overlooked but potentially helpful tool in reducing impulsive anger is exercise.
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So, who would you rather take your most “difficult” relatives to–Drill Sergeant Therapist or Dr. Phil? Why?
(Video is from a recent Geico commercial)
This post was inspired by Dinah, a psychiatrist over at Shrink Rap. She recently described how a psychiatrist friend of hers has been going through some phase-of-life changes. Recently he has regretted some of the advice that he previously had given to patients who were going through the same life changes he’s now going through himself. He realizes that he was not nearly so qualified to give the advice he gave because he looks at the situation differently through the new lenses of his own experiences.
Reading the post got me thinking more about psychiatrists and advice. When should and shouldn’t psychiatrists give advice to patients? I’d love to hear your opinions about this, but first I want to lay some groundwork and give you my own opinion.
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Do you remember that comedy from the early 1980′s starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd called Trading Places? The two of them unknowingly became pawns in a bet about nature versus nurture, and they were essentially forced through an elaborate scheme to “trade places” with each other. Aykroyd became penniless, and Murphy suddenly was wealthy.
In the work I’ve done with inmates, I’ve thought about that movie many times. I’ve also tried to put myself in the shoes of my patients. No, I’ll never truly know what their lives are like, but I still try to imagine.
Is criminality a result of one’s biology/genes, or is it a result of one’s upbringing?
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This article is a re-post from the first month this blog existed (11/09). Since there are many more readers now than there were then, I’m guessing that most of you haven’t seen this post. It was originally titled, “Doctor, Do Something!”
As the saying goes, when you’ve got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Send a patient to a surgeon, and he very well might get surgery. Send a patient to a psychiatrist, and he very well may end up on psychotropic medication.
As physicians, we need to take responsibility for our own actions. We should not prescribe or perform procedures unnecessarily. However, even if we are responsible for our own actions, not looking at our culture as part of the problem here would be a mistake.
America is an action-oriented, “do something” society. As members of this society, we tend to believe that we not only have the right to pursue happiness, but the right to happiness and good outcomes. When something isn’t right, we often turn to others to fix our life problems for us. The general assumption is that the answers lie outside of ourselves and that the remedy to life’s woes is available. The is very much a Western view and quite opposite the typical Eastern view of life.
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According to a recent USA Today article, a U.S. physician-recruiting firm received a 47% increase in the number of requests for psychiatrists between April 2009 and March 2010. This was a 121% increase from 2006-2007.
Psychiatrists were the third-most-requested physicians, trailing only family practice and general internal medicine.
How can this trend be explained?
By both supply and demand.
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