View source for SGU Episode 1026

== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, March 5th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

'''E:''' Hey everybody.

'''S:''' Cara Santa Maria. Howdy, Jay Novella. Hey guys. And Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening everyone.

'''S:''' Day is my wife's birthday, so happy birthday. Yeah, she's working, she's working on. She's actually at work right now. She's working in the evening on her birthday so I'm not going to get to see her till.

'''E:''' Later, Is she washing dishes, Steve? What's she? What is she doing?

'''S:''' No, she works. She teaches.

'''E:''' In. The evening joke.

'''S:''' I know she teaches in the evening, so yeah. So this is one of her days to to work late and she couldn't have.

'''E:''' It well, I'm sure her students and faculty all celebrated with her balloons and cake and all the good stuff.

'''S:''' Whatever, I hope so.

'''E:''' Just bring some home.

'''C:''' Speaking of work, I don't know if I told you all this, but as as you can tell, I've been a bit preoccupied, a bit busy lately. This week is the week that I am saying goodbye to all of my patients. Oh, boy. On my fellowship, which is tough. My fellowship technically ends next week. And then I take my licensing exam and there's just so much in front of me, so. And I have COVID, if you can't tell. Stuffy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I.

'''E:''' Didn't know that.

'''C:''' Did you guys? I was last week, I was trying to hide it, but I was coughing and sniffling a bit. And then I tested the next day and I was like, cool, yeah. So not only did I have to, I, I, I'm inpatient, I'm on inpatient service one day a week. And I had to miss my final inpatient service because I was testing positive for COVID, which was a huge bummer. And then now it's day after day of just saying goodbye. Like hour after hour. I've cried more. It's tough. Then it's it's such a tough thing because usually as a therapist, as a mental health practitioner or even a medical practitioner when you terminate with clients and that's the word, I wish they didn't use that word at some sort of I know. Yeah, Terminal. Yeah. But termination as we, as we do call it, it usually happens a bit more, I don't know, shall we say organically, like somebody feels like they've finished their course of therapy or maybe they're moving out of your licensed jurisdiction or whatever. But there are few points in our careers, most of them are early during our training where we have to terminate with everybody all at once before we move on to another phase of our training. And that's where I'm at right now. I've done it once before already at the same hospital when I my practicum, but yeah, it's so tough.

'''J:''' How much time do they give you? Like how much lead up time is there?

'''C:''' Oh, I've known this whole time. So I've been able to sort of prepare my clients. I think for some of them, I started preparing them about a month or two in advance. But for many of them, they knew from the beginning, you know, this is how much time we have together. And come, you know, February, March, April, at some point in there I'm going to be winding down my fellowship. But some of them completely forgot. And, you know, I would try to remind and I would try to prepare them, but there was still a couple this week who were like, no, what am I going to do? I was like, no, we'll get through this together. It's.

'''S:''' Yeah, it also happens at the end of your career.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So I'm just entering that phase now where every, just about every visit I have with a patient is my last visit with them. Yeah, I mean, there are some that that I do every three months. So like next month, it'll definitely that'll be it like that. That'll be the last time I'm seeing every patient. There's still a few that I'll see three months from now, but yeah, so I'm having the same conversation over and over and over and.

'''B:''' Over again, are you telling them what you really think about them now? And.

'''S:''' Well, I mean some, you know, some, some patients I've been seeing for 20 years. I was, you know, question.

'''C:''' How long you've?

'''S:''' Yeah, some had a.

'''C:''' Relation, such a different thing because like I see my patients weekly, right? And for a full hour every week. So there's a lot of intensity there. But yeah, this is different. Most of them I've only known for a year. A few of them were returned patients from when I was at the same hospital on practicum a few years ago. So there's like a depth there, but it's a shorter period of time. You see so many more patients than I do. But you've known some of them, like you said, for 20 years. You've seen their kids grow up. You've seen, you know, massive life changes.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's.

'''C:''' Incredible.

'''S:''' Yeah. So, you know, it's, it is, it is a bit intense. Oh, my patients have been so supportive though. They really have been great, you know, in terms of congratulating me and retiring everything. Then they got a little anxious on who's going to, who am I going to follow up with? But we have like, it's easy because we have a huge practice of Yale experts, you know, so.

'''C:''' So you can sort of transfer them to other practitioners in your same kind of practice. Whereas most of my clients, I am referring to community practitioners because there's just, you know, there's no options. So some of them take breaks. Some people say, you know, this is I want to take a break from therapy and kind of work on being my own therapist for a while. And then others are like, no, no, I need to find somebody right now. So a big part of that week is me doing a lot of research and writing a lot of referrals. Yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah.

'''E:''' Well, Steve, you have to remind them that they can still, you know, interact with you. Just become a patron of the skeptics guys, the universe, which is very easy to do if you go to our homepage.

'''S:''' Never cross the streams.

'''C:''' I mean, really. Don't you have a few? Do I have a few who listen on their own but I would never tell them like. Never bring it up.

'''S:''' Some some patients bring it up with me.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' And that's fine. I'm like, oh, that's, that's nice, you know, But I, yeah, I would obviously never, never bring that up.

'''C:''' I always, I have that conversation at the beginning of therapy too, where because when you're practicing in a community, there's a chance you will see people in situations outside of the clinic. And so I often will have conversations about what do we do if we run into each other in public because as somebody'd therapist, I would never ever announce that that is my relationship with them.

'''E:''' Right, just like I can never read who my tax clients.

'''C:''' Are totally, but they can say it. So I always tell them if you see me somewhere and you walk up to me and start talking and you share with your friends you know our relationship, great, I will converse with you. But if you don't sort of do it first, I will pretend like I don't know you and that's not me. Privacy. Yeah, that's to protect your privacy. Exactly.

'''Voice-over:''' That's right.

'''S:''' Yeah. That's, you know, for a while I, I was engaging with three large populations of people that I was basically acquaintances with, right? You know, work, skepticism and Larping, which is hundreds of people. Mm Hmm. And I would see somebody that I was like just barely acquainted with in the wild, you know? Yeah.

'''US#03:''' And I'm like, OK. Oh.

'''S:''' Are they a Larper skeptic or a patient? Yeah.

'''Voice-over:''' I. Know this?

'''S:''' Person like I know I recognize that obviously like my frequent flyer patients, like patients I've seen a lot. I have no trouble recognizing that. But like somebody I've seen once or twice like a year ago and like, I, I know I recognize that I recognize them, but like without context, like no context to just out in like in a store or something, sometimes it was hard for me to remember how I knew them, you know?

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Hey, Steve. And they're like, oh, how do I know you? Neurology. Which circle? On the vend, I imagine.

'''B:''' Yeah, imagine having prosopagnosia.

'''E:''' Yeah, right.

'''B:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. Increase that by an order of magnitude.

'''C:''' I guess you just tell everybody and then it makes it easier.

'''E:''' But yeah, that's true.

'''B:''' They know you well enough. They're going to know that.

'''E:''' I still say there should be like a when. When the smart glasses finally do become a thing that people adapt to, there should be something in which it puts a hello, my name is tag on the person them you know. That way you know exactly who you're speaking to at any given time.

'''C:''' Oh, kind of like. Did you guys ever watch Handy back in the day?

'''E:''' Boone I'm familiar with the series.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Julia Louis Dreyfus.

'''C:''' Yeah, Julia Louis Dreyfus. So it, well, it's not going to resonate for you, but it's a podcast, so a lot of people listening will have watched me. Yeah, she has. She has, you know, a bag man. And he just, he's constantly whispering in her ear every time she walks up to somebody. This is Senator so. And so he loves to play golf, you know, And then she's like, OK, Gary, I know. So that would be so helpful.

'''E:''' That's a real thing, sure.

'''C:''' Oh yeah, How could you keep track of all those people if you work in politics?

'''E:''' So we. All forget about, right? So eventually technology will become that right your. Your. AI whatever will recognize the person and whisper it in your ear. That's Joe Smith.

'''C:''' Or whatever.

'''E:''' Imagine if you have if you have Alzheimer's, it would be a boon. My God.

'''C:''' Oh, that would actually be really helpful, yeah, if you were struggling.

'''E:''' Technology is great.

'''S:''' It's great for people who have mild to moderate dementia. Think about GPSG PS:. Keeps people driving for a lot longer.

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah.
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