Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman Gives Amazing Speech on Roe v. Wade

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Wednesday May 11, 2022 · 8:57 PM PDT

2022/05/11 · 20:57

A doctor colleague sent me this remarkable video. I, a doctor, am still waiting for the medical and psychiatric communities to weigh in.

Where are the doctors in this fight? We are the ones who see the women needing safe abortions. I work with death row inmates. Several of my limited clientele are the end results of their mothers’ botched attempted abortions. By the time I see them, it is impossible to know whether their neurological vulnerabilities resulted from the attempted abortions or from maltreatment by caretakers who didn’t want them from conception onward.

Let us hear from the AMA and the APA. Their members know only too well the damage that will follow the prohibition of safe medical abortions.

Kudos to Amanda Gorman for getting our attention. Now

let’s all speak up!

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Correct Sentencing of 18 year old child porn voyeur

Ortelius

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Tuesday March 22, 2022 · 3:40 PM PDT

2022/03/22 · 15:40

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies on her nomination to become an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 22, 2022. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Senator Josh Hawley chastised Judge Jackson for her sentencing an adolescent voyeur of pediatric porn to several months in prison rather than to ten years of incarceration. Her decision was wise. The boy had not acted on his curiosity. To quote Chauncey Gardener, he “liked to watch.” I am a child psychiatrist who studies serious offenders. Had this teenager been incarcerated for years you can bet that he would have been sexually victimized by older inmates. What began as curiosity would have become grooming for sexual victimization.

The question of how he became a voyeur of children was never revealed. The likelihood that this adolescent had himself been a victim was never explored. I’d put money on it.

Perhaps an even wiser decision would have been returning the offender to a safe environment and referred for psychiatric treatment.

Prison or jail are probably the worst environments in which to send an adolescent who has manifested his sexual curiosity by watching children filmed indulging in sex acts.

Of note, those children were the real victims. A quest for who created those films would have been extremely helpful to the criminal justice system.

I have evaluated many young children who were sexually victimized. We should take advantage of all opportunities to identify the creators and purveyors of these pornographic materials. The children they prey upon rarely completely recover.

Pictures Antivaxxers Must See

Ortelius

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Monday December 20, 2021 · 6:43 PM PST

2021/12/20 · 18:43

I am a doctor. I have just seen the videos of Sarah Palin and Ron DeSantis advocating against vaccination. Here is Sarah Palin from yesterday:

YouTube Video

And here is FL Gov. DeSantis being vague about whether or not he got the booster vaccine:

YouTube Video

They do not know what they are talking about (or do they?).

I must believe they have no idea what Covid does to human lungs. Above is a photo of the inside of a Covid infected lung. Note the absence of clear, healthy, oxygen containing tissue.

COVID caused such severe inflammation that the tiny air sacs, the alveoli, became clogged with inflammatory cells and serum, letting no air into the lungs. This photo is post Mortem. We can assume that no amount of intubation could force air into the alveoli and into their surrounding delicate blood vessels. It is fair to assume that this patient was not vaccinated.

Below you will see the differences between two X-rays - a healthy, air filled lung, and the X-ray of a lung clogged with inflammatory materials induced by the Covid virus:

I show these pictures because I think that most anti-vaxxers have no idea exactly what Covid does to the human body. Nor do they appreciate the ways in which vaccines work to prevent or diminish these potentially lethal consequences of the disease. And the lungs are not the only organs damaged by COVID. It is a vascular (blood vessel) disease. It goes everywhere. Unvaccinated survivors may suffer damage to other body parts. Blood clots are not unusual sequellae.

If I were organizing a pro-vaccine demonstration, these are the images I would carry to show to the public at large. Only after seeing these can an anti-vaxxer be considered an informed citizen. They raise the ethical question of whether doctors should go unpunished for discouraging vaccinations and promoting dangerous alternatives. Should parents be permitted to deprive their children of vaccines? They must look at the pictures above, then decide.

Essential for Finding Children Separated from parents

Ortelius

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Friday June 22, 2018 · 11:50 AM PDT

2018/06/22 · 11:50

A view of inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention facility shows children at Rio Grande Valley Centralized Processing Center in Rio Grande City, Texas, U.S., June 17, 2018. Picture taken on June 17, 2018. Courtesy CBP/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. - RC174C9B4E40

I am a child psychiatrist, a mother, and a grandmother. It is essential that every effort be made to photograph the children in custody, especially the very young children. The physiognomy of children changes rapidly and if parents are to recognize their own children they should be shown pictures taken as close to the time of separation as possible. Pictures of parents would certainly help children identify their own mothers and fathers but infants and toddlers would not necessarily have the cognitive ability required.

It is also essential for children to be asked their names (?also parents’ names) if possible. Names are especially vital to ascertain quickly, before a foster parent for lack of knowledge about the child chooses a different name and the baby forgets his own name.

Finally, if restoration of parents and children is delayed, families and judges will be faced with the Solomonic problem of who gets the child, the foster parent to whom the child may have bonded versus the biological parent.

I think many of us would volunteer to go to shelters, photograph children, and gather these data.

Evidence Freddie Gray was Paralyzed Before Entering Van

Ortelius

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Friday May 01, 2015 · 4:36 PM PDT

2015/05/01 · 16:36

I am a physician specializing in neuro-psychiatry. It appeared to me from the very first videos of the arrest of Freddie Gray that by the time the officers were bringing him to the van, he was limp and had to be supported and dragged to the van. His left leg moved relatively normally, but his right leg was straight out and seemed to be unable to move. The moment I saw him I commented that he looked paralyzed.

It is also hard to believe that an injury of such severity could have occurred in the van. It seems far more likely to have been inflicted by severe blows to his spine. The news reports say that three vertebrae were damaged. How could that happen merely by being bounced around in a van?

I invite my medical colleagues to respond to these observations. I could be wrong. Then again, I could be right. Did anyone else notice this appearance of paralysis before Freddie was placed in the van?

Were all Christie trials prosecuted fairly?

Ortelius

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Monday January 20, 2014 · 6:57 PM PST

2014/01/20 · 18:57

Before Christie became Governor, from 2002 to 2008, he was the United States Attorney for New Jersey, appointed by George W. Bush.

From Wikipedia:

In that position, he emphasized prosecutions of political corruption, and also obtained convictions for sexual slavery, arms trafficking, racketeering by gangs, as well as other federal crimes

http://en.wikipedia.org/... Read More

On Capping Volcanoes Before They Blow

Ortelius

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Sunday December 16, 2012 · 4:34 PM PST

2012/12/16 · 16:34

I am a psychiatrist. I have spent most of my career studying people who kill other people.Not long ago I evaluated an adolescent who, like the Newtown shooter, first killed a parent, then shot up his school, wounding and killing many of his classmates.Could this massacre have been prevented? I think so. The adolescent I saw had much in common with the Newtown shooter.
1)He was a loner and was considered peculiar by his classmates because of his preoccupation with violence.
2)When obsessed with violence he wore black or camouflage, signalling his state of mind.
3)He was fascinated with weapons and prevailed on his parents to buy him a glock.
4)He went target shooting with his father (a passtime encouraged by his therapist as a means of bonding.)
5) He made his preoccupation with shooting known by speaking of it to classmates and writing about it in school assignments. It was no secret.
Unfortunately, of all who later told of the boy's fascination with violence, none took him seriously.
6) He had psychotic symptoms which were obvious (e.g.auditory hallucinations) which were observed by his teacher but ignored and/or punished.
Do the above similarities between the adolescent I saw and the Newtown shooter matter? You bet they do!
There are others in our schools and in society at large whose recurrent violent ruminations and preoccupations are signals that they are struggling with impulses to act on these preoccupations. They go out of their way to make their demons known.
We tend to look away. We leave it to others to respond.Believe it or not, several of the murderers I have evaluated were turned away from mental hospitals just prior to their committing murder. Psychiatrists hate violent patients.
Teachers, friends and acquaintances are reluctant to call attention to their peer's violent proclivities lest they be seen as over-concerned or intrusive. Others worry about being sued.
I would suggest that adolescents and adults be made aware of the numerous clues available that friend or acquaintance may be preoccupied with violence and may be about to "blow." They must also be taught to share their misgivings with a responsible adult.
Will mistakes be made? Of course.
On the other hand, some potential shooters might get the help they are seeking and thus be prevented from acting on their darkest urges and fantasies.

Response to the Inaccurate TV Media Coverage of the Colorado Shooter

Ortelius

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Saturday July 21, 2012 · 7:33 PM PDT

2012/07/21 · 19:33

I have spent most of my professional life evaluating murderers and studying the causes of vi9olence.As such I have encountered individuals whose behaviors were almost identical to those of the Colorado shooter. Therefore, I cannot stand back and let pass the blather of talking heads who purport to be experts on violence and who dismiss the shooter as sane but evil.
Just because this horrendous tragedy was carefully planned and mercilessly executed does not mean it was committed by a normal human being. More naive is the assumption that the underlying motive was simply fame.Baloney! Some of the craziest, most paranoid, most discontrolled members of our society are intelligent and appear sane.Too many of my colleagues dismiss them as self-aggrandizing psychopaths.
Not having examined this particular killer, it would be unethical and unwise to make a diagnosis. If, however, he is similar to others I have examined, I predict that the following facts will emerge:
1)He had been harboring feelings of rage and fantasies of destruction for years.
2)At times his thoughts and behaviors were odd and he was hard to relate to.
3)His moods fluctuated markedly as did his appearance (e.g. scruffy in fatigues vs. preppy and neat)
4)Most tragic and alarming, I suspect, no, I hypothesize, that many people who knew him were aware of his peculiarities and violent fantasies but did nothing to intervene.
5)His malfunctioning and despair were known to his teachers by virtue of fluctuating performance and moods.
6) People who recognized his need for psychiatric care were reluctant to recommend it lest they be sued by him or his parents.
I have known faculty at institutions ranging from grammar school to graduate school who have been afraid to confront troubled students lest they, the faculty, be criticized.
I am convinced that there were times when appropriate interventions could have prevented the tragedy in Colorado.
Again, to dismiss this catastrophe as the act of an evil fame-seeker is to miss the opportunity for the media to educate the public regarding the signs of a troubled, potentially explosive individual.

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