Publications by authors named "Mical Raz"

The decriminalization of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing products has resulted in an increased presence of these products in households. This increased presence, along with frequent use of product packaging that mimics recognizable and appealing treats, has led to a rise in accidental ingestions of THC-containing substances by children. Some clinicians and child protective services (CPS) professionals have recommended that every accidental THC ingestion by a child, irrespective of the circumstances, should be reported for investigation by CPS.

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Article Synopsis
  • Traditional policies aiming to reduce low-acuity emergency department (ED) visits assume that patients use EDs as a backup when primary care (PC) is unavailable, but this can worsen ED overcrowding if patients are actually using them alongside their PC.
  • A study analyzing Medicaid managed care enrollees found that post-Medicaid expansion, EDs are generally substitutes for PC statewide, but in urban and poorer areas, especially at night and on weekends, they often serve as complements.
  • The findings suggest that strategies to reduce unnecessary ED use should prioritize increasing actual appointment availability with physicians in areas that lack sufficient PC resources.
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Background: Medical professionals are key components of child maltreatment surveillance. Updated estimates of reporting rates by medical professionals are needed.

Methods: We use the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (2000-2019) to estimate rates of child welfare investigations of infants stemming from medical professional reporting to child welfare agencies.

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Gerald Grob's work in the history of psychiatry over the course of almost fifty years created a model for how historians might successfully situate mental health in its social and political context, and how inseparable it was from this context. Over the last twenty years, the field has grown tremendously. Historians have incorporated categories of analysis like gender and race, methodologies like cultural history and intellectual history, and sought to continue Grob's quest to understand American mental health history as a critical component of American history writ large.

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In the late 1960s, Philadelphia psychiatrists evaluated every child who interacted with the city's juvenile courts. These evaluations had an important role in determining the placement and treatment of these children, and emphasized the therapeutic nature of the juvenile courts at the time. Relying on extensive case studies compiled by the Philadelphia Department of Public Welfare, this study reconstructs the roles of psychiatrists in the experiences of children interacting with the juvenile justice system, to shed light on a hitherto unknown aspect of these children's care.

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In the 1950s, sensory deprivation research emerged as an influential new field for behavioral science researchers, supported by the intelligence community. Within a few years, deprivation research had become ubiquitous; images of sensory deprivation were invoked to explain a wide range of phenomena, from religious revelations to the very structure of psychoanalysis. Yet within a decade and a half, this field of research became implicated in cases of torture and abuse.

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In 1951 John Bowlby, British psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist, published his now famous report, Maternal Care and Mental Health, commissioned by the World Health Organization. In this report, Bowlby coined the term 'maternal deprivation', which quickly permeated into Western psychiatry and psychology. The implications of Bowlby's writings, while widely criticized and contested, generated a considerable amount of research and brought about significant changes in perceptions of separation between children and their mothers.

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In the 1950s, the term "deprivation" entered American psychiatric discourse. This article examines how the concept of deprivation permeated the field of mental retardation, and became an accepted theory of etiology. It focuses on sensory deprivation and cultural deprivation, and analyzes the interventions developed, based on these theories.

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Anaclitic therapy, a little-known chapter in the history of North American psychoanalysis and psychiatry, sheds light on the prevailing trends and therapeutic approaches common in the 1950s and 1960s. It touches upon major junctions in the history of psychoanalysis and psychiatry, such as the therapeutic use of regression, the usage of biological measures in conjunction with psychoanalysis, the relationship between therapist and patient and eclecticism in North American psychiatry. By following the brief history of this form of therapy, this article affords a glimpse of the history of some of the significant issues practitioners in psychoanalysis and psychiatry faced at the time.

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This article examines the use of lobotomy as a treatment for chronic intractable pain and reconstructs then-common perceptions of pain and of the patients who suffered from it. It delineates the social expectations and judgments implicit in physicians' descriptions of the patients, analyzing what was expected from such patients and how the medical establishment responded to non-normative expressions of suffering. I argue that the medicalized response to an expectation for normativity demonstrates the convergence between psychiatric and palliative interventions.

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