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 […]

Dr. Tia Powell directs the Center for Bioethics for Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  She is a national expert on dementia, and for full disclosure, she is a dear friend. So, it is with enormous joy that I share with you a conversation I had with Tia about her recently published […]

If only 007 could see it now… I spent the last two weeks in Moscow and St. Petersburg, first working and then visiting a world that has been colored for me by great (and long) Russian novels filled with palaces and czars, and Bond films portraying Cold War drama and intrigue. 1. Bond. James Bond. From […]

Quite possibly. For the more than 50,000 individuals who were denied insurance coverage for mental health and addiction treatment in a recent landmark case, the answer was definitively “yes.” Health insurance companies are required by law to provide coverage for mental illness and substance use disorders, and Americans are required by law to have health insurance. So, […]

Last Sunday, thirteen riders from our WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Mental Health team braved the downpour to bike in the Five Boro Bike Tour in support of global mental health. The Five Boro Bike Tour is a recreational ride that takes about 32,000 riders through the streets of Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. […]

A few years ago, I was standing in Central Park admiring the fall leaves. It was one of those lyrical moments of oneness with nature. Until our dog, whose leash I was holding, decided that she would do her own communing with nature by chasing yet another squirrel. She went right, my right knee went […]

Last week, we were joined in our Priorities in Global Mental Health class by members of Fountain House. Located in midtown Manhattan, Fountain House is dedicated to the “recovery of men and women with mental illness by providing opportunities for members to live, work, and learn, while contributing their talents through a community of mutual support.” I have […]

As the sun goes down this evening, millions of Jews around the world will celebrate the first night of Passover. The Passover Seder tells the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. We are to tell the story as if we too were once slaves. It is a quintessential story of freedom. The […]

This is the title of Jonathan Safran Foer’s New York Times Bestseller about a young Jewish writer on a journey to Ukraine to find his grandfather’s hometown and the woman who saved his life during World War II. The story is filled with colorful characters who beg your forgiveness and earn your affection. It is […]

In 1980-81, I studied international affairs in Bologna, Italy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). I had studied French since sixth grade, and thus, wanted to go to the Sorbonne in Paris. But I was a scholarship student at Hopkins, and the only option that I could afford was Hopkins SAIS […]