Archeological evidence suggests that tobacco grew in the Americas as long ago as 6000 B.C., and that the custom of smoking it began with the Mayans, sometime around 1000 B.C. The first European to smoke is thought to be Rodrigo de Jerez, who, with Christopher Columbus, observed the custom in Cuba in 1493.
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Dr. Guttmacher, as the Chief of Psychiatry at a large state hospital (the Rochester Psychiatric Center), you have a wealth of experience caring for the chronically mentally ill. I know you have been giving quite a bit of thought lately to medical issues that psychiatrists may be missing in this population.
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Too many of our patients smoke, especially those with schizophrenia. Amazingly, the best estimate is that 85% of patients with schizophrenia are regular smokers (Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:993-997). While we may not have a whole lot of time during our sessions to discuss smoking, it’s still helpful to tuck away some smoking cessation tools in your arsenal.
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Many pages of The Carlat Report have been devoted to how we cause our patients to become obese with some of the medications we prescribe. In this article, we review ways in which we can atone for our sins.
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Dr. Aiken is the Editor in Chief of The Carlat Psychiatry Report; director of the Mood Treatment Center in North Carolina, where he maintains a private practice combining medication and therapy along with evidence-based complementary and alternative treatments; and Assistant Professor NYU Langone Department of Psychiatry. He has worked as a research assistant at the NIMH and a sub-investigator on clinical trials, and conducts research on a shoestring budget out of his private practice. Follow him on Twitter and find him on LinkedIn.