Adventures from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Toxic stress is everywhere. As a pediatrician in Baltimore City, I acknowledge the elephant in the exam room at nearly every appointment. Abuse. Neglect. Domestic violence. Toxic stress is a term used to describe the repeated experience of adverse childhood events without positive interpersonal relationships to buffer the ongoing trauma. As a result, children in(...)
A sizeable crowd of over two hundred attendees gathered in Turner Auditorium on April 18, 2017, to hear discussions on mood disorders at the 31st Annual Mood Disorders Research/Education Symposium, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center. Mood disorders, which encompass major depression, anxiety disorder and bipolar disorder, as well as a spectrum of(...)
The following submission is the first place winner of The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation 2016 essay contest. You can read the original posting here. Modern medicine has worked miracles: we have cured infectious diseases with vaccines, replaced failing organs with transplants, converted many cancers from death sentences into treatable conditions. But one area has(...)
Lithium is a first-line treatment for patients with bipolar disorder, which is characterized by mood swings between mania and depression. Although widespread use of lithium to treat mania began around the mid-20th century, we still know relatively little about the compound’s mechanism of action. And we know even less about why lithium fails to treat(...)
Walking out of a lecture on mood disorders, one of my classmates made the striking remark, “Well, if that’s the definition of depression, then all medical students are depressed.” Even though his comment provoked laughter, I couldn’t help but wonder about the possible, sad truth in it. Like so many psychiatric disorders, the definition of(...)
Imagine you are a pediatrician working in an emergency department when a young female patient who was recently diagnosed as bipolar is brought in by her mother. She is visibly angry upon arrival, and her mother looks tired and distressed. When you enter the room, the young girl begins the interaction with foul language. She(...)