“Take Two Crackers and Call Me in the Morning! A Real-Life Guide for Surviving Morning Sickness”

Author: Miriam Erick, MS, RD, Department of Nutrition

More than 50,000 women are hospitalized each year in the U.S. with severe morning sickness, while countless thousands suffer at home. Miriam Erick, MS, RD, a senior dietician in BWH’s Department of Nutrition, provides solid solutions to solve the problem of morning nausea and vomiting in her book Take Two Crackers and Call Me in the Morning! A Real-Life Guide for Surviving Morning Sickness, complete with dozens of real-life cartoons.

The e-book depicts the journey of three characters with hyperemesis, better known as morning sickness: Carrie Covers, the book’s Irish protagonist, an Asian woman and an African American woman, who actively depict the universality of this problem that women across the U.S., and around the world, frequently experience.  The book brings the reader through the misery-laden malady of the three expectant women and their families, as Erick combines humor and clinical truths in a user-friendly resource. The book includes illustrations of gastric stomach patterns associated with nausea and nutrients in the brain. Guest appearances include the late Charlotte Bronte with her tale of woe as well as Duchess Kate Middleton showing that determination is the way to power through this problem. The book is intended for women who fatigue easily, and who need some humor during the worst moments.

“Psychiatric Care of the Medical Patient”

Author: Barry Fogel, MD, departments of Neurology and Psychiatry

Barry S. Fogel, MD, a senior psychiatrist and neurologist in BWH’s departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, together with of Donna Greenberg, MD, an psychiatric oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital with training in internal medicine and psychiatry, combines critical scholarship with his expertise in neuropsychiatry in Psychiatric Care of the Medical Patient, third edition, recently published by Oxford University Press. PCMP3 is an edited volume encompassing the work of more than100 contributors including many from BWH and MGH. The editors worked intensively with chapter authors and wrote several key chapters themselves. Chapters written by Fogel personally include those on the physical and neurological examination, the use of screening tests and rating scales, the assessment of sexual dysfunction, and issues of capacity, competency, and consent, all focusing on the clinical population with combined psychiatric and general medical illness.

In more than 1,800 rigorously-edited pages, the volume covers the psychiatric dimensions of all of the medical and surgical specialties, with a neuropsychiatric perspective that emphasizes the role of brain dysfunction as well as psychological factors. The book covers topics in depth that others in the field may not cover at all, such as the use of herbal and nutritional therapies for medical-psychiatric symptoms and syndromes, and individualizing treatment in the context of practice guidelines and managed care. While intended as an encyclopedic reference, it emphasizes concepts, principles and organizing perspectives that enable readers to make better use of online resources and provide a framework for understanding the rapidly evolving literature at the interface of psychiatry, neurology, and general medicine. Readers are introduced to new technologies for diagnosis and treatment of medical-psychiatric conditions, ranging from patient-reported outcome measures to smartphone apps to Internet-based psychotherapy to pharmacogenetic testing.

PCMP3 provides strategy and information to facilitate the dialogue between psychiatrists and general medical specialists, helping medical psychiatrists become effective patient advocates and systemic change agents. The book comes with access its digital version on Oxford Medicine Online. The authors are committed to periodic online updates of their work.