mmunity Psychiatrist

Volume 39, Number 1

Editor's Closing Comments

My partner and I have recently started to talk about financial planning for retirement and one of the first hurdles we had to face was "when do you want to retire?" He is a consultant for a large company and while he enjoys the projects and people he works with, he sees this as his job rather than his calling, and appreciates when Friday comes around. He imagines working hard now so he can retire at 50!

Mira Bodic, MD

AACP Director of Communications Newsletter Editor

I, on the other hand, have several part time paid and unpaid jobs, and love what I do, so not only do I occasionally attend "work" meetings and events in the evenings and on Saturdays, I see this as my life passion rather than my job.

I cannot imagine retiring (unless of course my brain goes haywire :)- in which case I really hope someone would tell me to stop if I lose awareness!)

What excites me in my work is the ability to challenge the norms of a limiting and often inadequate mental health system for the benefit of the people I treat, and to model this behavior for young minds in the process.

When I think of a relatable way to explain this, I keep landing on something like the game of tetris- many blocks of various shapes and sizes get dumped on you and you need to pick them up while still in the air, flip them to the most useful position and deposit them on your foundation. And they rarely match easily! However, after playing for a while you learn to anticipate patterns and, with enough skill and patience, line them up just so! And there you go: a line disappears and you get yourself some room to breathe!

The tetris game is a very good metaphor, in my opinion, for the work of a community psychiatrist. So let's play, work, help some folks along the way and write about it for the world to know!

Thank you to everyone who submitted to the AACP Newsletter, to everyone who reads it, and to everyone who contributes to the Community for Community Psychiatry!