Two of my kids just had their annual dental checkups. The dentist, who I like very much, recommends that they have their wisdom teeth removed. Sort of straightforward, except that a growing number of oral health professionals have moved away from prophylactic extractions. What should we do? Making good healthcare decisions in this era of […]

Today marks the last day of a two-week vacation with my family. Three generations together among great tortoises and blue footed boobies in the Galapagos and cattle and condors in the Andes. It was a trip of a lifetime. It was also a vacation with lots of quiet time for reading. Among us, we had […]

This summer, we have had thirteen interns working here in New York City with Columbia faculty and post-docs to advance mental health research, policy and advocacy. To name just a few projects: Interns were engaged in developing e-learning training modules, researching mental health providers’ attitudes towards prescribing psychotropic medications, and coding qualitative interviews about interpersonal […]

This week, we launched a new series called “What’s On Our Mind” to provide a space where we can talk with experts from around the world about current mental health issues. Hosted on Facebook Live (you don’t need a Facebook account to view), our aim is to provide an informative discussion in a casual, conversational format that […]

Last week, my family moved to the west side of Central Park. A whole new perspective on the same fabulous park. The new neighborhood is great, and now our dog walking route takes us through Strawberry Fields: the 2.5-acre area of Central Park that pays tribute to John Lennon. The Imagine mosaic lies in the […]

Beyond the fireworks and grilled burgers, July 4th is a day to celebrate America’s Founding Fathers. We all know that they were an exceptional bunch who led the War of Independence from Great Britain and drafted the Declaration of Independence among other things. But what did they know and do and experience in terms of […]

I was a young girl at the time of the 1969 Stonewall riots. Those were days when virtually no one talked about homosexuality and the AIDS Epidemic was still in the future. Fifty years on, an estimated 4.5 million people will be in New York City for International Pride this weekend, we have effective treatment […]

Sandra Luckow is a filmmaker and consummate storyteller. She is also completing her tenure as an Artist in Residence in our Mental Health Arts and Advocacy Program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Her film, That Way Madness Lies…, tells the heart wrenching story of the Luckow family’s odyssey through a broken mental health system […]

Hitting the send button each week is like serving in tennis. With great anticipation, I always wonder what will come back at me. Last Friday, I wrote about the recent adoption of the WHO International Classification of Diseases-11 (ICD-11) and provided a number of highlights about conditions that were added, deleted, modified, and garnering lots […]

Imagine playing golf and not having words for birdie or bogey. Imagine preparing dinner without the guidance of cookbooks that describe what a soufflé is and what the ingredients for lasagna are. The ICD-11 is the organizing volume, the guidebook, that captures our current knowledge for all health conditions, including mental health and substance use […]