When I was first prescribed lithium, my psychiatrist told me to take it once daily just before bed, and to get a blood test measuring the trough serum level 12 hours after the previous dose. I was troubled by these instructions. Firstly, I did not understand why my psychiatrist was using the term trough to apply to a lithium serum concentration about halfway between peak and trough serum…

Mental health care in Ukraine was already undergoing reorganisation before the second Russian invasion on Feb 24, 2022. The country had inherited Soviet-style health care when it became independent in 1991. This comprised a large, institutionalised psychiatric system associated with human rights violations, with few or no community-based services for people with mental disorders. Low awareness of…

We are survivors of domestic violence. It feels odd to see it written out so starkly in black and white—to acknowledge it publicly nearly 30 years after the fact. That said, it is long past time that we talked about how domestic violence affects people like us in academic medicine: one, an adult psychiatrist at tertiary-care academic medical centres, psychiatric hospitals, and a patient-centered…