The blog reviewed here is ‘Psychiatry in the Mainstream‘. This is a young blog which I first noticed on reviewing the Sport Psychiatrist blog (see review here) and I note that the author Dr Lawrence Choy has very kindly included this blog on the blogroll. On the home page, we learn that Dr Choy is from San Francisco, has a B.A in Molecular and Cellular Biology, an M.D and is currently a psychiatry resident at Stanford University Hospital.
Appearance and Design
The blog uses an effective white background throughout with black font for the text. The title pane features a picture of an inviting red sofa. At the time of writing, there are three posts on the main page. Two of the posts contain pictures complementing the articles. The articles are tagged and comments are enabled. Indeed the first article has 6 comments already. On the right hand pane, there is a chronological index and a particularly neat feature is the ability to navigate to articles using hypertext links within the calendar. There is a blogroll and the reader can subscribe to the blog posts.
Content
In the first article, Choy looks at ECT in popular culture with the now infamous misrepresentation of ECT in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and addresses some of the common associated misconceptions. In the second article, Choy cites characters with borderline personality disorder in films including ‘Girls Interrupted’. Film characters have been the focus of numerous articles by psychiatrists (see here, here, here and here) as they offer amongst other things a very useful opportunity for psychiatrists to demonstrate how illnesses can affect people’s lives and to be able to do this sensitively. In the third article, Choy discusses a new film (at the time of writing) ‘Shutter Island’ and uses this to discuss the subject of the leucotomy developed by Dr Walter Freeman and which has a very controversial history. There are indications for functional neurosurgery at the present time but the nature of both these indications as well as the surgical procedures has changed considerably.
Conclusions
Although this is a young blog, Choy has written some interesting articles and is using popular culture to highlight mental illnesses and their treatment and it will be interesting to follow this blog as it develops further.
Index
You can find an index of the site here. The page contains links to all of the articles in the blog in chronological order.
You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link
Podcast
You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).
TAWOP Channel
You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link
Responses
If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]
Disclaimer
The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.
