Had a patient once who was a airline pilot. He had to be admitted because of severe depression and started an antidepressant. Soon he wanted to get out of the hospital as fast as possible. Within one week he was back home. He was afraid the medical service of his airline would find out. That would cost him his job.Most airlines don't allow their pilots flying when on antidepressants. In Australia they have a better attitude to this problem, because to my opinion it is better to have a pilot on antidepressants than a depressed pilot.A study presented at a .....read more »

ONE in every ten male therapists will have sex or develop an intimate link with a female client, according to Australian research.In the article from AdelaideNow.com: One in ten shrinks 'intimate' with patients, the shrinks that let this happen can be identified as coming from three groups:She said professionals most likely to let this happen fitted into three groups - depressed men who were going through difficult times and were more likely respond to an adoring client, the bad eggs who "prey" on vulnerable clients and the "ego maniacs".There is very little detail about the research from which these conclusions .....read more »

Bruce E. Levine thinks that depression is a normal, albeit painful, human reaction. Because no biological markers for depression have been discovered, scanning techniques delivers conflicting results and the serotonin hypothesis of depression can't be proved we shouldn't consider depression being a disease. According to his post Why I Don't Disease Depression in the Huffington Post.Don't know the man but is he a left over from the seventies of the previous century? Where has he been? Following his line of reasoning all other psychiatric diseases would also be a painful reaction. PTSD? Sorry but that are the consequences when .....read more »

From About.com: DepressionThis is a list of items that our forum members said they would find especially helpful when they are going through a rough time during the holiday season. It includes thoughtful gifts in every price range.And here is the Top 10 Gift Ideas for the DepressedI am not so sure about the last suggestion: A Pet?What do you think about these gift ideas?Related posts: Beste Gifts for Bloggers and other Geeks Depressed residents make more medical errors Antidepressants should be combined with cognitive behavioral therapy for depressed adolescents ..read more »

A very short but accurate list of 5 questions to ask yourself when faced by this decision. From Johns Hopkins Health Alert.Answers to other three important questions on the site of The Royal College of Psychiatrists1. How is ECT given2. The Pros and Cons of ECT3. Controversies in ECTThanks to There are black dogs and black dogsTake special notice of the Further Information Section on this siteRelated posts: Give Your Mind A Workout, online cognitive therapy Video of Lecture on Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) Electroconvulsive therapy, evidence and challenges ..read more »

Sinterklaas and Saint Nicolas in French, is a holiday tradition in the Netherlands and Belgium, celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas' eve (December 5) or, in Belgium, on the morning of December 6. The feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of, among other things, children.Special candy is made for this event such as chocolate characters and pepernoten.These chocolate characters come in all varieties and all kinds of chocolate. Dr Shock prefers the dark chocolate type. What kind of chocolate do you like? My hypothesis is that medbloggers like dark chocolate. If you want to participate in .....read more »

24 patients would need to be treated with a dual-action antidepressant drug instead of SSRIs in order to obtain one additional responder. This is called a Number Needed to Treat (NNT) of 24. A number of 10 or lower is considered relevant, so 24 is way above it and not relevant although the authors of this review do their out most to let us believe otherwise.This is the conclusion of a large meta-analysis published in Biological Psychiatry. The assumption is that antidepressants that simultaniously enhance noradrenergic and serotonergic neurotransmission might benefit depressed patients more than antidepressants working on just one .....read more »

Very detailed pictures of the human body in 3D. These pictures can be rotated and viewed from different directions - giving doctors the greatest possible help in looking for signs of abnormalities or disease. You can see animated images from this super scanner on BBC health.A new scanner has been unveiled which can produce 3D body images of unprecedented clarity while reducing radiation by as much as 80%.The new 256-slice CT machine takes large numbers of X-ray pictures, and combines them using computer technology to produce the final detailed images.It also generates images in a fraction of the time of .....read more »

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com I just couldn't resist it, uploaded a photo and tried it.Related posts: More Photo Fun Make Your Own Obama Election Poster 4 Sites to Loose Valuable Time on the Internet ..read more »

Horrifying story from a Dutch Medblog written in English. Dr Lutser who has a famous Dutch Medblog reports about an Italian Doctor Simoncini. This Doctor Simoncini is well known for his assumption that cancer is a fungus and should therefore be treated with sodium bicarbonate. By the beginning of October 2007 Dr. Simoncini flew to the Netherlands and started treating Sylvia with intratumoral bicarbonate injections. He was supported by an Italian male assistant who is a doctor as well. She received up to 20 injections in her breast tumor. Shortly thereafter she became sick and contacted the general practitioner who .....read more »