I just wanted up training 1648 listening field well state with suicidal patients two aspects of treatment particularly apply here. First, when suicidal thoughts and impulses arise from things like severe depression, psychosis, confusion, anxiety, and or intoxication, it simply makes sense that decreasing those conditions decreases one's likelihood of suicide the run. Addressing the mental illness or disorder is important. That means accurate diagnosis, good treatment choices, evaluiating treatment response, and patient compliance with the treatment are very important. Second, for patients weeks of acute suicidal danger, and provide good reason to believe that their improvement is they are more likely to return to safe and effective functioning once discharged, and not to relapse A more recent, more complete discussion of this topic has recently been published the and can be read by clicking HERE. Lament to the Wife of a Psychiatrist mother and former wife of another psychiatrist, passed away November, 2008. She was the author of Lament to the Wife of a Psychiatrist, often-quoted poem that is almost never attributed to her. The poem, which others have modified for their own mental health professions and published such diverse venues as was written during the late 1940s. presented it around that time to a meeting of the Texas-Mexico Neuro-Psychiatric Society Galveston, at the request of Perry Talkington, M.D. A printed version appeared the Timberlawn newsletter, on October 17. It was reprinted almost 50 years later her book, There are at least 50 current references to it on the Internet, most without any attribuition. Here is the poem, which has delighted psychiatrists' spouses for decades, its original form LAMENT TO THE WIFE OF A PSYCHIATRIST I never get mad, I get hostile; I never feel sad; I'm depressed; If I sew or I knit, And enjoy it a bit, I'm not handy, I'm merely obsessed! I never regret, I feel guilty, And if I should vacuum a hall, Wash the woodwork and such, And not mind it too much, Am I tidy? Compulsive is all! If I can't choose a hat I have conflicts, With ambivalent feelings toward net; I never get worried, or nervous or hurried, Anxiety! That's what I get! If I'm happy, I must be euphoric; If I go to the Stork Club or And I have a good time Making puns or a rhyme, I'm a manic, or maybe a schiz. If I think that a doorman was nasty, I'm paranoid, obviously. And if I take a drink Without stopping to think, It's A.A. surely for me. If I tell you you're right, I'm submissive, Repressing aggressiveness too, But if I disagree, I'm defensive, you And projecting symptoms on you! I you, but that's just transference, With Oedipus rearing his head. breathing asthmatic Is psychosomatic, A fear of exclaiming, Drop dead! I'm not lonely, I'm merely dependent; dog has no fleas, just a tic; if I seem a cad, Never mind, just be glad That I'm not a stinker, I'm sick! Copyright 1957, L. Copyright renewed, 2003, Dr. Lazarou, of Tampa, FL, emailed me about a recent discussion at a forensic medicine seminar. It had to do with lawyers who proffer expert witnesses without their knowledge. The practice is sometimes described as having a ghost expert, and it is very irritating to our profession. Such unscrupulous lawyers use expert's name a document without actually retaining him or her or, worse, actually attribute expert opinions to a professional who has neither been retained nor actually expressed those opinions. The purpose is usually one of three things: The attorney hopes the expert's name alone be intimidating to the other side; the attorney hopes that listing the expert prevent him her from being retained by the other side and or the lawyer is lying to the other side and the court about unexpressed opinion addition to misusing psychiatric experts' names and reputations, and depriving them of income, this is routinely viewed by forensic psychiatrists and psychologists as unethical, dishonest, and a fraud upon the courts. Fortunately, the practice is uncommon. It probably happens more often to experts who are very well-known Most lawyers 't do it, and none of the ones I would knowingly associate with would do such a thing. fact, initial letter to inquiring attorneys reminds them that they must not list me as expert unless I am genuinely retained, and they must not attribute any opinions to me unless they have been genuinely rendered. far as I know, when forensic