Sunday, February 04, 2007

My Three Shrinks Podcast 9: My Three Chromosomes


[8] . . . [9] . . . [10] . . . [All]


We decided to listen to Sophizo's suggestion and set up an email address for listeners to send questions to, and we will answer a couple in each podcast (starting with Podcast #11). We won't be able to answer them all, and we will not be able to answer any personal clinical questions. Send an email to mythreeshrinksATgmailDOTcom.
Also, feel free to go to iTunes and write a review (we had one, but it disappeared). We now have over 300 regular listeners (wow!), so maybe someone has something to say about us (maybe even something nice).
Last request: Dinah is only up to mid-season 2 in Lost, so she requests you post no spoilers for her on our blog, or she will be Positively Lost.


February 4, 2007:
Topics include:
  • AJP: Genetics of depression. Two related articles in this month's Green Journal are from the GenRED study (Genetics of Recurrent Early-onset Major Depression). The Levinson article reports significant linkage for an area on chromosome 15 in 631 families with recurrent early-onset major depression ("early onset"=<40 yrs old). The Holmans article reports results of a genome scan in 656 families, finding significant linkage in areas of chromosomes 8, 15, and 17.
  • Mandatory screening for depression? Clink conducts a thought exercise.
  • Blogs & Identity. We talk about Dr. Anonymous' recent troubles after Fox News brands his one of 5 great medical blogs, and our feelings about blogging behind anonymous names (or not). See Dr A's post on the Myth of Anonymous Blogging. Moof's post is also worth reading on this topic. (We suspect his video blog may have given away his identity.) We look forwards to the congressional hearings on who leaked his identity and how high up this thing goes.
  • Whither Public Psychiatry? Where have all the public sector psychiatrists gone? The number of HPSAs (Health Professional Shortage Areas) have decreased, while there seems to be less physician trainees who accept partial payment of their educational costs in return for a pledge to work in a HPSA after completing their training. But, Maryland has the most psychologists per capita in the US. (Search for Maryland psychiatrists at mdpsych.org.)
  • Questions for us? Email at mythreeshrinksATgmailDOTcom. We'll answer some starting with Podcast #11 (in two weeks).

Next week: Biochemical effects of chocolate on mood (we really mean it this time). Also false positive drug tests, and children of psychiatrists.
Last week's musical snippet was from the 1986 release, Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes), from their eponymous album by Book of Love [lyrics].



Find show notes with links at:

http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-three-shrinks-podcast-9-my-three.html
This podcast is available on iTunes. You can also listen to or download the .mp3 or the MPEG-4 file from mythreeshrinks.com. Thank you for listening.


Blogged with Flock

10 comments:

Midwife with a Knife said...

I liked the podcast, as always. Tangentially, I still have a hard time telling clink and dinah apart by voice.

I was particularly intrigued by the genetics discussion. The impact of maternal genetics on critical care in MFM is one of my favorite things. My thesis project involves using those chips to scan whole genomes looking for things. (I will spare everybody further details). Anyway, I think the ethical implications are fascinating. It's information that we don't have a clue how to handle yet. I mean, let's say you find a polymorphism that gives you a lifetime risk of 80% for recurrent episodes of major depression. What do you do with that information? Should these people be watched more closely? What would that even mean? What if it's 60%? 40%? And would just knowing about ones increased risk of depression increase your risk even further (would the test itself be harmful?) Are you better off not knowing?

sophizo said...

I have to say that this was the most entertaining podcast to date. Very funny and I really liked the topics. I like when you guys discuss articles and thought the depression theme was a good one. Why didn't you also give a link to the article on Grohol's site? You guys specifically mentioned it.

Mandatory screening - I thought PCPs were now supposed to do that when you have a physical or see them for an issue. At least I thought I read that somewhere and I know I've experienced it even though there was nothing to indicate a need to question me. They don't do this in MD?

Public sector psychiatrists - Interesting topic. I knew there was a major shortage of child psychiatrists, but didn't realize that there was also a shortage in the general public sector. What other areas of psychiatry are having shortages and is there any reason why there are these shortages? I also didn't know MD has the highest number per capita of psychiatrists. Does that mean there are more people in MD who are in need of psychiatric help? Those of us who are MD's neighbors sure think so. haha! ;-)

Now that you guys took my idea and are running with it...does this mean I have to think of a question? hmmm...I'm sure I can think of something! Wait a sec...this comment is full of questions. I better stop before I run out of things to ask.

Rach said...

My computer committed suicide (I'm posting from work), and so I'm 3 pod-casts behind. What's the diagnosis for the survivors of computer suicide???

Dinah said...

Blogger is insisting I sign up for New Blogger. Beta Blogger. Whatever. Roy says "Don't do it! We could lose the whole blog>." It won't let me into our dashboard. Well, sometimes. Posts will be on an as-able basis until I know which way to go.

Rach, I'll invite you to my nervous blog breakdown.

Sarebear said...

Nice.

Gerbil said...

Okay, I confess: this was the first podcast of yours that I've listened to, except for a snippet from your first one. Yes, I am now convinced to go multi-media as far as Shrink Rap is concerned!

Roy, you mentioned California's dearth of psychiatrists in the corrections system and the imminent doubling of salaries. According to my friend, a prison psychologist, this applies to psychologists as well. (Woo-hoo psychologists! not all of us use whips and chains!)

Also to Roy--did you spend any of your formative years in the greater Philadelphia area? Or perhaps I am merely terribly in withdrawal of that down-home (or daaown-haaome) speak, as I'm marooned on the west coast, and I'm just hearing what I want to hear...

Midwife with a Knife said...

I like the new blogger. I think you can archive your posts or something so they're retrievable.

Don't take me too seriously, though. It's taken me 6 months to figure out how to set up my PDA. :(

NeoNurseChic said...

I switched over to the new blogger, and I have to be honest - I held my breath as I did it! One thing I did before switching over was I copied and pasted my entire html template into word, because you lose your sidebar and links basically. Then - once I switched over, I had to get a handle on how the new system worked - especially since everything comes up slightly different on a Mac (it's still a PC world, for now!), but I did manage to put my entire sidebar back up by playing around within a couple of hours - save the music player. I had that on there, but it seemed not to be working right on my computer, so I took it down for now.

The only other obnoxious thing about the new blogger is if I type all my comments here and then fill in the word verification and hit enter - sometimes it's still showing the old blogger and as soon as I hit enter, it says, "You must sign in using your google ID" and i lose whatever I wrote. I wrote a comment here earlier and that happened, and I didn't feel like re-typing it.

But otherwise - the new blogger is working great for me!! I think honestly that most of the frustrations with blogger (don't kill me now...) are human error. It's not easy to figure out how to do the html coding and if you haven't gotten it straight, and something goes wrong, then it is extremely frustrating to try to get it back. I always make sure I have all original templates and so on so that I can copy the html by hand if I have to - because I wouldn't have known how to do that stuff from scratch!

Take care,
Carrie :)

Dinah said...

So I was at the gym yesterday. I don't usually read while I exercise, but there was a People mag just sitting ont he crosstrainer, I started reading and learned that Libby and Ana Lucia were, IRL, arrested for drunk driving and written out of the show. I threw the thing on the ground. This is so unfair.

Steve & Barb said...

Great questions, Midwife. I would want to know of increased risk, as then I could attempt to stack the deck in my favor (or not). We know regular sleep and exercise reduces risk of depression, so maybe I'd do more of that. (Of course, I don't regularly do my back exercises and I KNOW that I have flare ups of back pain without the exercises.)

Sophizo, the link to Grohol's site is in the podcast (in iTunes, when the podcast gets to this section, a link shows up on the screen). I'll add the link to the show notes, also (just forgot).

Rach, sorry to hear of your departed computer. Get a Mac. They have a genetic profile that significantly reduces the risk of suicide. Windows OS has been shown to be genetically inferior, and to harbor polymorphisms which increase the risk of depression, suicide, anxiety, catatonia, coma, and infections.

Carrie and MW, thanks... we are still weighing the blogger switch.

Gerbil, southern Virginia early on, then pure Bawlamer.