“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” — Robert Frost There are few human experiences as celebrated and as poorly understood as romantic longing. We romanticise sleepless nights, obsessive thoughts and the inability to get someone out of one’s mind. But what happens when these experiences cease to be pleasurable? When thoughts become […]
INVITED ARTICLES
Approach to Depression: From Assessment to Recovery
Depression is more than feeling sad or having a difficult day. It is a clinical disorder that can affect mood, interest and pleasure, energy, sleep, appetite, concentration, self-esteem and functioning. Some individuals may primarily present with fatigue, aches and pains or other physical complaints rather than spontaneously reporting sadness. A thoughtful and systematic approach is […]
External Posting Essentials: Part 3 – Bringing the Learning Back Home
In Part 1, thoughtful preparation laid the foundation for a meaningful external posting. In Part 2, that preparation shifted into active observation, engagement, and learning within a different clinical environment. But the learning does not end when the posting does. It ends when you have translated what you learned into something usable in your home […]
External Posting Essentials: Part 2 – During Your Posting
In the first part of the series, we discussed about how thoughtful planning lays down the foundation for a successful external posting. Once you arrive at the host institution, you must execute the planning. The first three days: observe before you perform The temptation on arrival is to demonstrate competence, to show that you are a capable resident who can clerk patients, […]
The Biopsychosocial Model: Seeing the Person Beyond the Diagnosis
“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” – William Osler Imagine two patients presenting with the same complaint of low mood. One has a strong family history of depression and hypothyroidism. The other recently lost a parent, is socially isolated, and is struggling academically. Although both […]
Thirdhand Smoke – The Invisible Risk
In tobacco care, we often talk about smoking and secondhand smoke. But there is another exposure that is easy to miss and just as important to understand: thirdhand smoke. It is the toxic residue that remains after a cigarette has been smoked, and it stays behind on walls, furniture, clothes, carpets, dust, and cars. This […]
Learning by Association: Classical Conditioning
How do we account for most soft drink advertisements showing the drink being consumed in association with friends having a great time, celebrations, music and exciting adventures? This marketing approach leverages a simple principle, first discovered and described by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, called classical conditioning. Pavlov was engaged in the study of digestion in […]
External Posting Essentials: Part 1 – Before You Leave
The external posting is among the most underutilised opportunities in Indian psychiatry residency training. Each year, hundreds of MD Psychiatry residents are sent to other institutions for four to twelve weeks of training in subspecialty areas their parent departments cannot offer, most commonly child and adolescent psychiatry, psychotherapy, and deaddiction medicine. Some return transformed. Many […]
When Words Matter Most: Breaking Bad News with Empathy
Few moments in medicine are as emotionally challenging as telling a patient that life may never be the same again. Whether informing someone about a diagnosis of schizophrenia, cancer, dementia, or a poor prognosis, breaking bad news is a task that demands not only clinical knowledge but also compassion, patience, and communication skills. Bad news […]
Stress and Its Components
“When will it get better, Doctor?” your patient asks. And somewhere inside you, a quieter voice asks the very same thing. Before we reach for the textbook, sit with that for a moment. Because stress is not something we will only encounter in our patients, many of us are already living it. Hans Selye defined […]