text:
Case of Martin H. Stein, MD
(AKA: Martin Stein)
Psychiatrist (Private Practice) - Arlington, VA
Joint Appointments in Psychiatry and Neurology - George Washington University School of Medicine - Washington DC
Psychiatric Institute of Washington (1997 - 1999) - Washington, DC
Medical Director (1978 - 1990) - Dominion Hosptial, Falls Church, VA
NOTE: There is more then one psychiatrist by the name of "Martin H. Stein.
Stripped of his medical licenses in Virginia and the District for negligence, inappropriate and excessive prescribing of drugs for patients as young as 4 and sexually intimate behavior with a patient.
Dr. Martin Stein, was born in 1940. He has degrees from Harvard and Yale universities. He had held appointments to the clinical faculty at George Washington University School of Medicine and had been named one of the area's best psychotherapists in Washingtonian magazine.
A complaint against Stein filed with the American Psychiatric Association and its local branch, the Washington Psychiatric Society, in March 2000 by the former husband of a patient ended three years later when Stein resigned from the organizations "during the course of an ethics investigation," according to an APA spokeswoman.
Va. Doctor's Misconduct Left Trail of Broken Lives; Medical System Failed To Protect Patients (09/28/2003)
A Broken Marriage And a 'Life Destroyed' (09/28/2003)
Doctors Failing to Police Their Own (10/28/2004)
Psychiatrist Is Seeking To Regain Va. License: Noted Doctor Faced Host of Accusations (01/30/2008)
Arlington psychiatrist loses effort to regain license (01/30/2008)
Testimony at Hearing Seals Fate of Arlington Psychiatrist (02/02/2008)
Arlington psychiatrist fails to get license back (02/02/2008)
Other Psychiatrist Associated With Harvard:
Case of Dr. Rabbi Alan Horowitz, MD
V. Doctor's Misconduct Left Trail of Broken Lives; Medical System Failed To Protect Patients
By Sandra G. Boodman and Patricia Davis.
The Washington Post. - September 28, 2003
Anita Kratzke hadn't been feeling well in the days before she died. Her body was still in bed, tucked under her comforter, and there were no signs of violence.
So when the Fairfax County detective who had been called to the Reston home to investigate Kratzke's sudden death spotted several bottles of pills near her bed, she called the doctor who had prescribed them.
Martin H. Stein said he was Kratzke's doctor and would sign the 49-year-old woman's death certificate, police reports said. No autopsy was performed.
Police said Stein never explained that he was a psychiatrist treating her primarily for back pain, not for any life-threatening condition.
"Cardiac arrest," Stein wrote on the death certificate. He did not examine the body, nor had he documented a visit with her in eight months.
Stein, once listed among the region's best psychotherapists in Washingtonian magazine, would say later in court papers that he had no idea what killed Kratzke.
More than 21/2 years after Anita Kratzke's death on March 19, 2000, the Virginia Board of Medicine ruled that Stein was a danger to public health and that his signing of the death certificate without proper investigation was part of a pattern of negligence. The board's 22-page order details ethical breaches, misdiagnoses and the inappropriate and excessive prescribing of drugs, including narcotics, in the treatment of 10 patients Stein saw between 1991 and 2000.
The board found that Stein had sexual relations with a patient, treated children even though he is not a child psychiatrist and was responsible for the deterioration of several people under his care. Despite the severity of the violations, Virginia's medical board did not revoke Stein's license. Instead, the 63-year-old board- certified psychiatrist signed a consent order last Oct. 11 agreeing to surrender his license for at least a year. He can apply for reinstatement next month. The D.C. Medical Board issued an emergency suspension based on Virginia's order and revoked Stein's license July 9.
Stein's story provides a rare, unusually detailed examination of the failures of a flawed system that purports to protect the public. His case raises questions about the speed and adequacy of discipline meted out by medical boards -- a slow process enveloped in secrecy that critics say harms vulnerable patients by allowing bad doctors to keep practicing -- and about the medical profession's ability to police itself. This report is based on more than 100 interviews with former patients and their families, physicians, hospital officials, lawyers and medical board and law enforcement authorities, and on thousands of pages of documents filed with two medical boards and courts in the area.
Among the patients cited by the board were Anita Kratzke, her husband, Robert, and their youngest son, Chris, whose simultaneous treatment the board called a "clear conflict of interest." The board found that Stein's treatment of Robert Kratzke caused him irreparable brain damage that forced him to retire on disability from his GS-15 engineering job at the Department of Energy. Chris Kratzke got so sick under Stein's care that he was committed to psychiatric hospitals for more than a year. The board also cited Stein for not properly managing more than a dozen medications, including powerful narcotics, he prescribed to Anita Kratzke.
"He totally wiped out my family, and we had to start over," said Robert Kratzke, 52, who pulled up three decades of roots to build a new life in Honolulu for his sons. "Our life was totally destroyed."
Beyond the Kratzkes, the board found that Stein "engaged in sexually intimate behavior" for more than two years with a patient to whom he rented a room in his Arlington office for $100 a day and charged her $200 an hour to go on shopping trips and visit her home. Stein flew with the 35-year-old woman to her home town in Illinois - - at her expense -- to "evoke memories of childhood abuse." Other documents submitted to the board say Stein encouraged the woman to "remember" that her father had been active in a satanic cult that sexually abused her and forced her to kill and eat a baby. The report concluded that Stein misdiagnosed and drugged her 4-year-old son, once binding the boy's ankles with electrical tape after his mother said he was out of control. None of the patients was named in the board's order.
Stein has declined more than a half-dozen requests for comment. One of his attorneys, Geoffrey Gavett, said, "We've reviewed the requests from The Post to comment, and after careful deliberation we've concluded it's not appropriate." In court papers, Stein has denied mistreating his patients and said the care he provided has always been in their best interests. Although Stein agreed not to contest the findings of the board, he did not admit they were true. He has told colleagues and others that he was suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder while treating many of the patients cited by the medical board.
Stein was well known to the Virginia board years before his suspension. A 1995 complaint by the father of a teenage patient was closed in 1998 without any action. A 1999 letter by a Northern Virginia internist triggered a second probe that ended more than three years later with his suspension. In the interim, there was no way a patient could have known Stein was under investigation. Board officials say that 85 percent of the approximately 1,500 complaints it receives annually do not result in disciplinary action and must remain confidential. Anyone who checked would have been told that Stein had a clean record. Of the 10 patients cited in the board order, nine consulted him in 1995 or later.
Nor did the board do anything to protect the public by suspending Stein's license while it investigated the complaints. Six malpractice suits have been filed against Stein since 1995; four are pending, one was settled, and one was withdrawn.
Even the doctor who reported Stein to the board was angered by how long the process took. "The board is incapable of getting rid of bad people," the internist said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I kept calling and calling, and nothing happened. The fact is, the public is not being protected."
Medical board officials say changes are underway and they already have cut the time it takes to resolve complaints from an average of 2.6 years in 1999 to 1.3 years last year.
Stein's case highlights another systemic flaw that imperils patients: a lack of oversight that allows doctors -- especially psychiatrists, who tend to practice alone in an office -- enormous discretion. Physicians are further shielded from scrutiny by what patient advocate Peter Lurie calls "the thin white line" -- the fierce reluctance of physicians to report a colleague they suspect or know is incompetent, impaired or dangerous. Under Virginia law, doctors are required to notify the medical board when they see such conduct, but that rarely happens.
"The medical profession does a really crummy job of policing itself," said a psychiatrist who reported her concerns about Stein to a Washington hospital. "Nobody wants to say anything critical about a colleague, because they don't want to get involved, they're worried about being sued and there's this feeling, 'That could be me.' "
Chris Kratzke was 7 years old when behavioral problems prompted his parents to seek help in 1995. A respected neurologist at Washington's Children's Hospital recommended that they see Stein.
"We always looked for the best care for our family, and that's what we thought he was," Robert Kratzke recalled.
Stein's credentials were impressive: degrees from Harvard and Yale, a 12-year tenure as medical director of a Northern Virginia psychiatric hospital, joint appointments in psychiatry and neurology to the clinical faculty at the George Washington University School of Medicine, and a thriving practice in Arlington.
Supporters and critics describe Stein as bright and outspoken, a risk taker who delights in challenging the orthodoxy of his profession.
But, some doctors and patients say, his rebelliousness breached boundaries psychiatrists are not supposed to cross. From the earliest days of training, doctors -- especially psychiatrists -- are repeatedly warned that they must maintain the proper physical and emotional distance from patients. Stein, though, sometimes hugged female patients or held their hands, according to several doctors and patients.
He loved to talk about himself, revealing intimate details of his life, including his use of antidepressants, according to four former patients. He once entered patient Debra Fink's room at Dominion Hospital in Falls Church, flopped down next to her on a bed and began nibbling a cupcake she had left on her nightstand, according to Fink's friend Stephanie Miller, who witnessed it.
An 11-year-old Stein treated for three years for alleged incest said he stroked her shoulders, commented on her developing breasts and advised her to gain weight to stave off unwanted sexual attention. "He told me so much about his childhood and his family that I felt I knew them," recalled the woman, now 22.
Stein's behavior was no secret among the staffs at the hospitals where he practiced, according to several doctors. It was the subject of frequent comments, especially among the nurses. One psychiatrist said she complained to supervisors at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington that Stein was behaving inappropriately, holding a patient's hand and conducting excessively long therapy sessions in unusual places, such as seclusion rooms. Their response, she said, was, "Marty does things that way." The psychiatrist said she left the hospital soon afterward. Administrators said that they found no record of the complaint and that Stein was never disciplined.
Similar complaints were rare. Medical experts attribute the silence to doctors' unwillingness to criticize a colleague and the value they place on clinical independence. The ability to practice as a doctor sees fit, however unconventional the method or dubious the treatment, reflects medicine's most ferociously defended prerogatives: physician authority and autonomy.
Some physicians fear that blowing the whistle on a colleague will brand them as traitors and subject them to ostracism and retaliation.
"There really is a conspiracy of silence in medicine," said Lurie, a physician and deputy director of the patient advocacy organization Public Citizen Health Research Group. "Doctors protect each other. The whole culture of medicine, going back to the boot camp style of residency, creates a team mentality. There's a tendency to protect people who share so much."
Hospitals are equally reluctant to censure physicians, fearing expensive and time-consuming lawsuits that could earn them bad publicity and the wrath of the medical staff on whom they depend for patients. Since the 1990 inception of the National Practitioner Data Bank, the federal government's confidential repository of malpractice payments and disciplinary actions, about 60 percent of the nation's 6,000 hospitals have never reported disciplining a single doctor. Problems are often handled informally. Sometimes doctors are given a signal that their privileges will not be renewed or are advised to resign to avoid a sanction that will appear on their records.
Howard Hoffman, medical director at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington, where Stein had privileges from 1997 to 1999, said Stein's privileges were not renewed there because "he never completed the re-credentialing process."
In a deposition, Stein said he resigned as medical director from Dominion in 1990 after 12 years to avoid being fired from that post. Hospital records show that he chose not to renew his privileges in 1992, said Brian Dearing, the hospital's chief executive officer.
Professional societies also seem reluctant to root out problems. A complaint against Stein filed with the American Psychiatric Association and its local branch, the Washington Psychiatric Society, in March 2000 by the former husband of a patient ended three years later when Stein resigned from the organizations "during the course of an ethics investigation," according to an APA spokeswoman.
Officials at both groups declined to explain why the resolution took three years.
A key reason Stein practiced so long with so little oversight is psychiatry's elastic standards. Although it is clearly malpractice for a surgeon to cut off the wrong leg, psychiatric malpractice is less clear-cut and harder to prove. Diagnosis and treatment tend to be more subjective, there are rarely witnesses, and the victim, who is being treated for a mental illness, is regarded as inherently less credible.
But Stein's prescribing of unusually high doses of medication, often for unapproved uses and in untested combinations, drew the attention of some of his colleagues. The medical board cited his misuse or overuse of drugs in the cases of all 10 patients.
"He was shameless about using these doses," said one psychiatrist. She recalled one meeting at which Stein announced that he had a patient on 180 milligrams per day of Prozac, double the maximum dose of the antidepressant recommended by the manufacturer.
"The whole room went quiet," she recalled. "But nobody said, 'Marty, are you out of your . . . mind?' " Over the years, she said, she has seen patients of Stein's who "were medicated up and down the wazoo and were completely dysfunctional. I needed to tell these patients, 'Your doctor's a quack,' which patients never want to hear. Generally what I'd say instead is, 'You should get a second opinion,' because there's this whole thing about not bad-mouthing a colleague or picking off someone else's patients."
Although some doctors consider Stein a reckless cowboy, others are vocal in their defense of him as a courageous pioneer.
One of the most ardent is Jonathan H. Pincus, chairman emeritus of neurology at Georgetown. "People hate him because he's pushing the envelope most of the time, and he would mock people within the envelope," said Pincus, chief of neurology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, who said Stein is "one of the most talented and sensitive physicians with whom I've had the pleasure of working." That sentiment is shared by a number of his patients, who spoke privately.
But Pincus noted that his opinion was not widely shared. "Every time his name came up, psychiatrists would roll their eyes," Pincus said. His requests that Stein be granted privileges at Georgetown University Hospital were rebuffed by hospital administrators, who cited the objections of the psychiatry department. He was rejected despite the facts that Pincus was an influential chairman with a national reputation and Stein had referred dozens of patients for neurological workups and brain surgery.
Pincus observed that "some of the things Marty said were just off the wall," such as his diagnosis of epilepsy in patients who showed no symptoms. To Pincus, this showed that his friend was a "provocateur," not that he was impaired or dangerous.
Neurologist Samuel J. Potolicchio, leader of a weekly epilepsy conference at GWU who has treated many of Stein's patients, said he respects Stein's abilities. "If I had a psychiatric problem, I would see him," Potolicchio said. "Dr. Stein took care of very difficult cases. These people would come in, and he was like a god to them."
When William Stage arrived at Dominion Hospital in 1988 after 10 years as medical director of child psychiatry at Washington's St. Elizabeths Hospital, he heard stories about his new boss. He had a favorite "drug of the year" as well as a "diagnosis of the year.
Stage was skeptical -- until he flipped through patients' charts. "I saw he was putting everyone on the same drug, regardless of their diagnosis. One year it was Tegretol," a potent epilepsy drug that can cause a fatal blood disorder.
Stage said he agonized about what to do. He worried that he lacked sufficient evidence of wrongdoing because he hadn't directly witnessed it and that if he spoke up, Stein might sue him. His wife, a clinical psychologist, warned him that blowing the whistle on his supervisor could torpedo his own career.
"What I saw was never quite enough," recalled Stage, who now is in private practice in Alexandria. "Psychiatry is a unique relationship that by its very nature is more intense, more involved and more intimate than any other field of medicine. There are not a lot of clear-cut ethical boundaries. It's very hard to define where the line is between sloppy work and dangerous work. This is a bright man, a charismatic man, who worked hard and had good credentials."
Stage kept quiet.
In August 1999, a Northern Virginia internist decided he had to act. One of his patients, a young woman with a history of heroin use, had landed in Fair Oaks Hospital with an arm abscessed from intravenous drug use. She told the internist that Stein had prescribed large amounts of the narcotic painkiller Oxycontin because it alleviated her depression. The internist said he called Stein, who defended his treatment and said antidepressants were not helping her.
In his letter to the medical board, the internist wrote that he had treated other patients who had seen Stein "whom I felt received excessive and inappropriate therapies."
"I wrote such a strong letter they couldn't ignore it," he recalled. "But then I kept calling the board to find out why nothing was happening."
Robert Kratzke said he and his wife were elated when Stein told them he could help their son Chris control the disruptive outbursts that stemmed from his severe learning disabilities. "This is not a big problem," Robert Kratzke recalls Stein telling them in 1995. "He'll be a new boy in a couple of months."
The psychiatrist prescribed escalating doses of powerful drugs for the boy, whom he diagnosed with three serious disorders. Soon he was treating Anita Kratzke's chronic back pain with massive amounts of powerful narcotic painkillers. Robert Kratzke, depressed about his son's worsening condition, became his patient, too.
Paul Applebaum, a Massachusetts psychiatrist and expert in psychiatric ethics who is president of the APA, said psychiatrists rarely treat members of the same family, because it poses a problem of divided loyalties.
Instead of getting better, the family got worse, the board found. Chris became suicidal and explosive and spent more than a year in three mental hospitals -- one five hours away in Lynchburg, Va. His father suffered brain damage from the drugs Stein prescribed, according to the board. His mother died suddenly at 49.
The board did not conclude that Stein's treatment caused Anita Kratzke's death but questioned his signing of the death certificate without examining the body.
After The Washington Post showed Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. a copy of the board's ruling, he assigned a homicide detective to reopen the investigation into her death. The detective considered having her body exhumed for an autopsy but was told by experts that the embalming process would render inconclusive any toxicology tests. Stein would not talk to the detective, police said.
"In hindsight, there is a lot of indication that an autopsy was called for," Horan said. "The [first] officer didn't know the volume of medication she was supposedly taking. The reality is that without an autopsy, it's difficult . . . to prove actual cause of death. The known evidence would lean toward a drug death."
Stein said in court papers that he was pressured by the funeral home to sign the death certificate. He said he wanted to say the cause of death was unknown, but the funeral home said that was unacceptable.
In a lawsuit against Stein filed in Arlington County Circuit Court, Robert Kratzke alleges that his wife died from taking multiple, addictive pain medications prescribed by Stein that the psychiatrist failed to adequately monitor. In court papers, Stein has denied that and his lawyers speculate that Robert Kratzke may have poisoned his wife.
Fairfax Detective Robert Murphy discounts that theory and said his investigation indicates that Anita Kratzke likely died from an accidental overdose. "I also believe that her overdose was largely due to Dr. Stein's failure to properly monitor her condition and drug regimen," Murphy wrote in an e-mail to Robert Kratzke. "I believe the only way we could have known the truth was with an autopsy, which Dr. Stein thwarted when he signed the death certificate."
Stein's excessive use of numerous medications and his misdiagnoses formed the core of the board's findings involving the Kratzkes. The ruling noted that he prescribed 23 drugs for Chris, including those used to treat epilepsy and psychosis, as well as 160 milligrams per day of Prozac, double the maximum adult dose. At the time, the drug was not recommended for children.
Peter S. Jensen, a professor of child psychiatry at Columbia University and a former official at the National Institute of Mental Health, called Stein's treatment of Chris "just astounding. In my career, I've never seen these kinds of doses before." Jensen, a psychopharmacologist, called the regimen "extremely dangerous because of the risk of using medications in a way we have no information about."
Stein failed to respond to evidence that Chris was "severely deteriorating" and dismissed concerns that his treatment might be responsible, the board found.
Martha B. Denckla, a professor of neurology, pediatrics and psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who had seen Chris for annual evaluations of his severe learning disabilities since he was 5, said she was alarmed by the "marked change" in his condition in 1996 after Stein began treating him. Denckla said she twice warned the Kratzkes that Chris was seriously overmedicated and that she saw no evidence of the psychiatric problems Stein had diagnosed.
"This had been a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, smart, charming little kid, and he had become very unpredictable, explosive and out of it," Denckla said. After the Kratzkes twice ignored her concerns, she said, she called Stein and told him she was upset by Chris's condition. Denckla said Stein agreed that a child psychiatrist she recommended should consult on the case. He saw Chris briefly, then left for a new job in California; Stein continued treating the boy.
On Chris's 10th birthday, his parents took him, kicking and screaming, to Dominion. He was later moved to a Lynchburg hospital, where he stayed for more than a year. His oldest brother, Robby Kratzke, 33, said Chris often cried on the phone, begging to come home and asking, "Why do I have to be here?"
Robert Kratzke said Stein assured him that many psychiatric problems could be remedied by treating chemical imbalances in the brain. "He said if you're still feeling pain, then your body still needs the drug," Kratzke said. "I found him believable."
In its order, the board found that Stein prescribed "inappropriate and conflicting" medications for Robert Kratzke that resulted in permanent injury. The board also found that Stein did not respond to evidence that Kratzke was abusing alcohol as well as prescription drugs, that he repeatedly passed out behind the wheel, crashing several cars, and that he was so drugged that he fell headfirst down the stairs.
Fifteen months after he became Stein's patient, Kratzke, 47, retired on disability after a 24-year career with the federal government. Stein helped him complete the paperwork.
Even though Stein does not currently have a license, he faithfully attends a weekly epilepsy conference at George Washington University Hospital designed to teach medical students and residents, according to senior doctors in attendance.
On a recent Thursday morning, residents waited expectantly in the hospital's basement auditorium, ready for the 7:45 a.m. event.
Shortly before the start, Stein, wearing a hospital ID badge that said "Martin Stein Neurology," strode through the double doors and headed for a seat down front.
Stein offered frequent observations about a trio of patients presented on videotape, although he can't practice and his teaching appointment at GWU School of Medicine ended in June 2000, according to records.
An official of the D.C. Medical Board said it planned to send investigators to the hospital next week to determine whether Stein was practicing medicine without a license by participating in the conference.
A spokeswoman for GWU Hospital said because the epilepsy conference is open to the public, Stein's participation is permissible. "It does not mean that he is in any way participating in any decision-making about patients," she said.
But she added, "Certainly we're not happy with the fact that he was wearing his badge." She noted that the hospital has three times asked Stein to return it since October 1996, when he last had privileges there.
"I'm appalled that Stein is attending and contributing at conferences that are intended to teach residents and students proper patient care," said Donna Miller Rostant, a lawyer for the Kratzkes. She declined to discuss the Kratzke cases.
The Virginia board could have revoked Stein's license but instead permitted him to surrender it for a year. Deputy Executive Director Karen Perrine declined to discuss Stein's case but said the practical effect of a suspension at the time of the 2002 order was the same as a revocation: loss of his license for a year. In either case, she said, doctors can apply for reinstatement.
Stein's case underscores years-long criticism of the Virginia board that is only beginning to be addressed: that it rarely disciplines doctors, that the process takes too long and that punishment is too lenient, leaving the public vulnerable.
"We see a lot of bad conduct by physicians, but it doesn't get any worse than this," patient advocate Lurie said of Stein. "A year seems like a very short time, given the damage he did -- like less than a slap on the wrist.
"I think it's outrageous that someone would be able to reapply for his license, especially since there's no hoop he has to jump through, no set of clear criteria about what standards he would have to meet to get reinstated," Lurie added.
In August 1999, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the Virginia General Assembly's investigative arm, issued a report that found that the board took an average of three years to resolve the most serious cases involving physicians and usually allowed them to continue practicing during an investigation regardless of the severity of allegations -- including the death of a patient.
Until recently, Virginia doctors faced sanctions for substandard care only if they were grossly incompetent or negligent. That threshold was so high -- higher than the standard applied to doctors in nearly every other state and to other health care workers in Virginia, including veterinarians -- that meeting it was extremely difficult. As a result, only 3 percent of cases before the board involved substandard care by doctors.
Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed a law lowering the standard from gross negligence to simple negligence and authorizing the board to revoke a doctor's license for three years, not just one.
William L. Harp, a psychiatrist who is executive director of the board, said Virginia's system is "complaint-driven" and does not attempt to uncover bad doctors. "Unless the board hears that there's a problem, the doctors are expected to be practicing good medicine," Harp said, adding that "the practice of medicine is on the honor system."
That seems to be the philosophy of many state medical boards. In 2002, according to Public Citizen, fewer than 0.5 percent of the nation's doctors -- about 2,800 of nearly 805,000 -- were the subject of serious discipline. "Too many state medical boards . . . still believe their first responsibility is to rehabilitate 'impaired physicians' and to protect them from the public's prying eyes," the group concluded.
Most boards, advocates say, are chronically under-funded, dominated by doctors -- there are 14 on Virginia's 18-member board - - and intimidated by the well-funded legal defenses that are mounted by physicians in trouble.
Physician Joseph A. Leming, who was president of the medical board during the Stein investigation, disagreed and said the board is aggressive in disciplining bad doctors. "I have never seen sympathy for a doctor be an impediment to the removal of a license," he said. "The protection of the public is our paramount concern."
Bureaucratic obstacles, Leming said, prevent a speedy resolution. Cases too often languish for months or longer before board members receive them. "I've seen reports that merited immediate suspension, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck go up, and I've asked, 'Where the hell has this been? This is a damn catastrophe,' " said Leming, whose term expired in June. "That was not uncommon."
One problem, he said, is that investigators do not work directly for the medical board but for the much larger Department of Health Professions. And, he noted, the board has no control over its budget, which is set by the legislature, or its staffing, which is controlled by the governor.
Funding is critical, Harp said. Boards that ferret out bad doctors rather than wait for complaints have many more resources than Virginia's, he said. The scheduled addition of investigators may help, he said, but may be offset by an increase in cases resulting from the lower negligence standard.
Some progress has been achieved, he said. "Resources are the key. . . . [The process] will never move fast enough for me."
Chris Kratzke is not taking medication now, his father said. At 15, he is doing well in school and played defensive tackle on the football team. Recently his artwork took first place in a state competition.
Denckla, who last saw Chris in 2001, said his dramatic improvement "is a tribute to some resilience inside the kid. It's amazing how well he's bounced back."
Robert Kratzke said his primary focus is constructing a new life for Chris and his older brother, Mike, 17. Chris, his father said, is angry and "feels like he lost a good part of his childhood."
Chris says he doesn't recall much about Reston. He remembers how his mother used to make him waffles and cut them into tiny pieces for him when he was little. By contrast, his memories of the mental hospitals remain painfully vivid.
"It was like being in jail when you don't deserve it," he said. His worst moments were the wrenching sadness he felt watching his parents drive away after their visits. "I used to really want to go home. But I couldn't."
A Broken Marriage And A 'Life Destroyed'
The patient and her psychiatrist flew from Dulles International Airport one steamy June Saturday on an impossible mission: to scour the woman's childhood home in Illinois for proof of events that never occurred.
The 36-year-old woman's therapy sessions with psychiatrist Martin H. Stein had been dominated by horrific "memories" -- that her father, a prominent lawyer who had been dead for more than a decade, was a leader of a racist satanic cult. She told Stein she had been sexually abused by him and other cult members who forced her to kill and eat a baby. She said she stood on the basement steps of her family's house and watched her father shoot numerous black men, among them a handyman who worked for the family.
None of it ever happened, the woman's family said. The Virginia Board of Medicine said Stein used hypnosis, suggestion, massage, psychiatric drugs and the trip to Illinois to evoke the memories -- all of which were uncorroborated or disproved. The handyman, for example, actually died in a hospital after a long illness.
The story of the Fairfax County homemaker -- identified as Patient C in the board's ruling suspending Stein's license -- is the most extraordinary of the 10 cases cited by the board. It highlights the life-altering influence a psychiatrist can exert over a patient and underscores the unusual nature of Stein's practice.
At the time of their 1998 trip, financed from the woman's seven- figure trust fund, Stein was involved in an intense relationship with her, which included "sexually intimate behavior," according to the board. Stein urged the woman to divorce her husband and advised her that spending the inheritance would be "therapeutic," the board found.
Their remarkable 21/2-year relationship is chronicled in a 500- page complaint the woman's ex-husband submitted to the medical board in November 1999. The complaint, which includes e-mails, medical records and other documents, became the basis for portions of the consent order Stein signed last year when he surrendered his license. It alleges, in painstaking detail, the destruction of a family and the increasingly precarious condition of a woman with a history of serious mental illness who endangered her children and sacrificed her financial security in a desperate attempt to please her doctor. The woman's two young children also are among the patients cited in the order.
The board found that Stein referred the woman to an Alexandria divorce lawyer who is his friend and diagnosed her as having eight psychiatric disorders for which he prescribed about 30 drugs. It concluded that he gave her financial advice, accepted expensive gifts from her and arranged a meeting with his sister to talk about sexual abuse. The board found that he showed the woman a videotape and discussed the treatment of another patient, identified elsewhere as Ruthann Aron, the Montgomery County politician charged with hiring a hit man to murder her husband. Stein was a key defense witness at Aron's trial.
Stein misdiagnosed Patient C's 4-year-old son and gave the boy and his 7-year-old sister powerful psychiatric drugs that had not been approved for children, the board also found.
"What happened here is that someone who went to a psychiatrist for help comes out of it with her life destroyed," said Walter, the woman's former husband, who spoke on condition that his last name not be published to protect his children's privacy. "I basically lost everything. And my kids? Well, who knows what the long-term damage might be."
Walter said his former wife, whom he sees frequently, has been cautioned by her attorney not to talk about Stein; the attorney confirmed this. In September 2001, Stein agreed to pay the woman about $200,000 to settle a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court alleging medical malpractice, sexual battery and fraud. All records in the case were sealed by a judge at the request of both parties. Walter estimates that his former wife gave Stein $200,000 to $250,000 in fees and gifts.
Walter said his former wife consulted Stein in September 1997 because she thought she might have attention deficit disorder. A few weeks after their initial meeting, Walter said, Stein summoned the couple to his office. "He told me [she] had bigger problems [than ADD] and started showing me these devices, including a battered metal baby cup, that he said were used by satanic cults."
Stories about ritual sexual abuse by satanic cults -- increasingly fantastic tales about organized devil-worshippers who abused and killed young children -- circulated in mental health and law enforcement circles beginning in the 1980s. The phenomenon had been discredited in mainstream psychiatric circles well before 1992, when a noted FBI behavioral scientist, Kenneth Lanning, issued an influential report saying that despite extensive investigation, there was no evidence of such cults.
Stein disagreed. In 1995, according to a teenage patient and her mother, he kept trying to convince the girl that her estranged father had been a cult member. The patient, now 22, said Stein threatened her with hospitalization if she did not "remember" the abuse.
In November 1997, Walter said, Stein drove Walter's wife to the Psychiatric Institute of Washington, where he had privileges. Walter said Stein told him at the hospital -- where Walter's wife spent nine days -- that Walter's nine-year marriage was over and blamed him for his wife's hospitalization. "I went home, and I didn't know what to do," Walter recalled. "I concluded that she was crazy and that I wasn't going to leave the children."
Within weeks, Walter said, his wife began spending as much time as she could with Stein. She left home at 5:30 a.m. to bring Stein coffee and bagels and returned later than 10 p.m., after she had delivered the psychiatrist's dinner.
Stein billed her $450 for two-hour therapy sessions, which were sometimes as frequent as six days per week, Walter said. The board found that he also allowed her to fill canceled appointments and rented her a room in his office for a daily rate of $100 so she could "hang out." She confided to her sister that she couldn't live without Stein and threatened to kill herself by starving. At one point, records show, the woman, who had a history of anorexia and bipolar disorder, stopped eating and lost 20 pounds. The board found that twice she took overdoses of medication Stein prescribed, yet he failed to send her to an emergency room.
Stein seemed to encourage the patient's dependence: He took her with him when he taught at George Washington University's medical school and accompanied her to doctor's appointments, sometimes going with her into the examining room, according to documents that are part of the complaint.
Six months after she started seeing Stein, a Merrill Lynch vice president handling her brokerage account questioned Stein's fees and expressed amazement at the $60,000 she had given Stein, according to a statement the woman's sister submitted as part of Walter's complaint. The broker warned her that if she did not curtail her expenses, her trust fund, which then substantially exceeded $1 million, would be exhausted in a few years.
At the same time, Walter said he and her siblings, alarmed by her condition, consulted a dozen prominent psychiatrists across the country. Most advised that they obtain a second opinion, a plan that Stein discouraged, the board found.
Stein's attentions were increasingly directed at the woman's children, especially her young son, whom the psychiatrist decided was seriously mentally ill. The medical board found that Stein misdiagnosed both children and continued to be involved in their care over Walter's written objections and in violation of a court order. On one occasion, the board found, Stein bound the boy's feet and ankles with electrical tape in front of his sister because his mother said he was "out of control."
William Stage, a child psychiatrist who treated both children for several months, said he thought at the time that "the kids and their father were okay and [their mother] was making them sick." The board found that several other child psychiatrists failed to find any evidence of the multiple problems Stein diagnosed in the boy other than depression.
In September 1999, a judge awarded both parents joint custody of the children but explicitly barred Stein from involvement in their care, an order the board found Stein violated.
In January 2000, the relationship between Stein and the patient ended abruptly, for reasons that remain unclear. About that time, Walter said, the medical board, which had received two complaints about Stein in 1999, began its investigation.
Walter said that his ex-wife has found a new therapist and that his children are being treated by a child psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital and seem to be coping well. He said he is trying to put the ordeal, which cost him his marriage and more than $60,000, behind him.
"I lost everything," Walter said, "and I had to basically fight this by myself. Unless you force the board to act, they will protect doctors."
Doctors Failing to Police Their Own
The Washington Post. - Oct ober 4, 2003
A Sept. 26 Metro article reported the indictment of William Hurwitz for drug distribution. Two days later, a front-page story, "Va. Doctor's Misconduct Left Trail of Broken Lives; Medical System Failed to Protect Patients," featured the failure of the Virginia Board of Medicine to effectively discipline Martin H. Stein. The board's lack of action concerning Dr. Hurwitz also could have been the focus of that article.
The board revoked Dr. Hurwitz's license in 1996 for over- prescribing narcotics and restored it less than a year later. Earlier this year, Dr. Hurwitz was again before the medical board to answer more than 30 allegations of grossly negligent care since the 1997 restoration -- the same conduct for which he recently was indicted. Despite evidence of willful and reckless behavior, the board only suspended his license.
In today's debate about the alleged medical malpractice insurance crisis, doctors blame the lawyers and the lawyers blame the insurance companies. Physicians also must bear responsibility for this situation. A small percentage of doctors causes the majority of malpractice claims, yet medical boards such as Virginia's rarely act against their own.
In the article on Dr. Stein, board officials maintained that changes are in process. Their recent actions in Dr. Hurwitz's case belie this assertion.
Despite behavior deemed worthy of a 49-count indictment, Dr. Hurwitz's license still has not been revoked. To truly care for the public, doctors must begin policing themselves effectively. Had they done so with Dr. Hurwitz, three people might still be alive.
M. BRYAN SLAUGHTER
The writer represented the family of the late Linda M. Lalmond, a patient of William Hurwitz, in a lawsuit that was settled this year in Fairfax.
Psychiatrist Is Seeking To Regain Va. License
Noted Doctor Faced Host of Accusations
By Sandra G. Boodman
Washington Post - Thursday, January 31, 2008
A well-known Arlington County psychiatrist who was stripped of his medical licenses in Virginia and the District for negligence, inappropriate and excessive prescribing of drugs for patients as young as 4 and sexually intimate behavior with a patient is trying to get his license back.
Martin H. Stein, 67, is scheduled to appear today at a public reinstatement hearing before the Virginia Board of Medicine in Richmond. Stein has told colleagues he was suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder when he treated many of the 10 patients described in a consent order he signed in 2002, surrendering his license for a year. He agreed not to contest the findings in the order but did not admit they were true.
The three-member panel will consider whether Stein is competent to practice and will consider the cases of 17 additional patients he treated from 1994 to 2002, some of whom filed complaints after he was suspended.
In response to Stein's reinstatement petition, the board filed a 15-page report alleging that he "repeatedly endangered" patients by overprescribing drugs or prescribing doses exceeding safe levels; provided false information to insurance companies; and crossed ethical boundaries by e-mailing a patient's ex-boyfriend, hugging another patient and referring a third to a divorce lawyer while also treating her husband.
"Why would it be in the public interest to reinstate the license of a practitioner with this kind of history?" asked Arthur Levin, a lawyer who directs the New York-based Center for Medical Consumers.
Reached by telephone at his Georgetown home, Stein, who had been receiving disability payments, declined to comment. His attorney, Michael Goodman of Richmond, called Stein "a changed man" who is "looking for the board to give him another chance."
"I believe his mental health is an issue, and I believe he will address that," said Goodman, who specializes in representing doctors in disciplinary hearings. He declined to discuss Stein's history or the 17 new cases.
Until his suspension, Stein, who has degrees from Harvard and Yale universities, operated a thriving practice in Rosslyn and was renowned in medical circles for his unorthodox practices. He had held appointments to the clinical faculty at George Washington University School of Medicine and had been named one of the area's best psychotherapists in Washingtonian magazine.
His case was detailed in a 2003 investigation by The Washington Post into the flawed, slow and secretive medical disciplinary process and the failure of doctors to report peers they believe are incompetent, impaired or addicted to drugs.
Shortly after his suspension while facing malpractice suits, Stein filed for personal bankruptcy. His D.C. license was revoked in 2003. Court records show he has been sued more than 15 times since 1995; at least 13 cases have been resolved.
Stein's quest to be reinstated raises questions about when, or if, a disciplined doctor is fit to practice again. At the time Stein was suspended, a doctor in Virginia could be barred for a maximum of 12 months.
In the past six years, Stein has been "doing a lot of introspection," according to his lawyer, as well as attending meetings, reading, writing and conducting research.
"He's been beaten up and beaten down, and he's learned a lot of lessons," said Goodman, who added that Stein is "a very compassionate, caring person" with "excellent clinical skills."
Several former patients and a Northern Virginia internist whose 1999 complaint to the board led to Stein's suspension said they consider his offenses so egregious that he should never return.
The physician, who asked not to be identified, citing negative reaction from his colleagues, said that when he learned of the hearing this week, he immediately wrote to the board offering to testify.
Jennifer L. Deschenes, the medical board's deputy director, said that reinstatement requires a doctor to prove competency "in every area of deficiency." In 2007, board records show, 10 of the 12 doctors who applied for reinstatement got their licenses back, some with restrictions.
Neurologist Samuel Potolicchio, a professor of medicine at GWU, said Stein, a longtime friend, "has been doing everything he should be doing to get reinstated." Potolicchio said Stein wants to work with Iraq war veterans at the Veterans Affairs hospital in the District. An official at the D.C. Medical Society said Stein has worked as a volunteer researcher there.
Donna Hall, whose case is among the 17, said she does not plan to attend the hearing "because it would be bad for my mental health." Board documents say that Hall, a patient of Stein's for five years, had several disorders misdiagnosed, including dementia, and was prescribed 22 drugs.
"He messed me up really bad, and I thought I was going to die," said Hall, 54, of Woodbridge. "He took years away from my family, and I can't ever get those back."
The cases of Robert Kratzke and his family are among those that led to Stein's suspension. Kratzke retired on disability at age 47 from his GS-15 government job because of permanent brain damage caused by overmedication. His young son spent a year in a mental hospital, and his wife died while taking massive doses of narcotics the doctor had prescribed for back pain.
"I'm floored he's reapplied, but Stein is a smart guy who knows how to manipulate the system," said Kratzke, who lives in Honolulu. "Look at his track record."
Martin Stein
Arlington psychiatrist loses effort to regain license
Baltimore Examiner - January 30, 2008
The Virginia Board of Medicine says it will not restore the medical license of an Arlington County psychiatrist.
Testimony at Hearing Seals Fate of Arlington Psychiatrist
Washington Post - Saturday, February 2, 2008; B04
The hearing was entering its 10th hour Thursday night when Arlington County psychiatrist Martin H. Stein learned that his 40-year career as a practicing physician was effectively over.
The Virginia Board of Medicine denied Stein's petition to reinstate the license he surrendered six years ago for his treatment of 10 patients, among them a 4-year-old whose legs he bound with duct tape.
The three-member panel found that Stein had harmed 17 other patients by over-prescribing sometimes dangerous combinations of drugs, diagnosing nonexistent conditions and engaging in unethical behavior with female patients.
Stein, 67, who declared personal bankruptcy five years ago and has been sued more than 15 times since 1995, may reapply or appeal. But both are expensive, time-consuming processes with virtually no chance of success.
"I know he's disappointed, as I was," his Richmond-based attorney, Michael Goodman, said yesterday, adding that his client has not decided how to proceed.
Stein's marathon hearing in Richmond provided a revealing glimpse into the largely secret process involving the reinstatement of doctors disciplined for the most serious offenses. The toughest cases are those such as Stein's that hinge on competence and psychological factors rather than substance abuse, which can be treated and monitored through random drug tests.
State medical boards, which are dominated by doctors, must balance the safety of the public with the rights of colleagues, who typically mount well-financed and aggressive efforts to get their licenses back. Last year, only two of the 12 doctors who petitioned the Virginia board for reinstatement were denied.
"The questions we looked at during these hearings are, has a doctor learned his lesson, is he currently competent and are his problems fixable?" said former board chairman Joseph A. Leming. He called reinstatement hearings "profoundly intense."
Stein, who has been receiving psychiatric disability benefits, told the board he is being treated for bipolar disorder, which he said was largely to blame for his many problems. The panel met in closed session for two hours with Stein's psychiatrist and other doctors to hear details of his treatment.
The medical director of the Virginia Health Practitioners' Intervention Program, whose staff evaluated Stein, disagreed. Internist Patricia Pade, who argued against reinstatement, said his problems involve "characterological issues." Also known as personality disorders, such problems include narcissism and grandiosity.
Julia Bennett, a lawyer representing the commonwealth, emphatically argued against reinstatement, saying that Stein failed to prove he was no longer a danger to public health and that there was no way to monitor him.
"It doesn't matter what kind of safeguards you put in place," she said, noting that some of Stein's former patients called or wrote asking that he be permanently barred, though none attended the hearing.
"I'm glad they did their job," said Robert Kratzke of Honolulu, an aerospace engineer who retired on disability at 47 after suffering permanent brain damage caused by Stein's overmedication. "He used his patients as guinea pigs."
Kratzke's young son, who also was under Stein's care, spent a year in a mental hospital, and his wife died while taking massive doses of narcotics that the doctor prescribed for her back pain.
Stein, who holds degrees from Harvard and Yale universities, was once listed among Washingtonian magazine's best therapists. He told the board he hoped to treat Iraq war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington.
Armed with a battered cardboard banker's box tied with twine and a laptop computer containing patient records, he alternately apologized for and defended his treatment.
His rambling answers were sometimes hard to follow.
Stein, a Georgetown resident, said that his marriage has suffered and that he was "humiliated" by a 2003 investigation of his case by The Washington Post. That story examined the impact of years of inaction by the medical board, hospitals, professional societies and other doctors.
At times, panel members seemed sympathetic. But they appeared visibly shocked when Stein defended his failure to see a patient who had been mutilating herself.
"I'm very comfortable with patients cutting themselves," Stein said, adding that he did not consider it a serious problem. Most doctors disagree; cutting can be permanently disfiguring or cause fatal injury.
Stein, who billed a patient $200 an hour to go shopping with her, said he had taken remedial courses on proper boundaries and prescribing. He said he would accept any conditions in order to be able to contribute "some very special skills."
Neurologist Sam Potolicchio, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, said he was willing to help monitor Stein, whom he called "a very astute neuropsychiatrist" who was sometimes "misled" by patients.
But Donna Rostant, a Fairfax lawyer who represented 12 clients whose malpractice cases against Stein were resolved confidentially, told the panel that it was patients who were misled.
"I saw the fallout from this," Rostant said. "It destroyed some lives."
Arlington psychiatrist fails to get license back
Arlington doctor is unfit to resume practice, board rules
By Bill MC Kelway
(Richmond) Times Dispatch -- Saturday, Feb 02, 2008 - 12:08 AM
A once-prominent Arlington County psychiatrist's five-year effort to regain his medical license failed Thursday before the state's Board of Medicine.
Martin H. Stein declined to comment after a three-member panel of the board concluded that the longtime physician and Yale graduate is unfit to resume practice.
Stein, 67, surrendered his license in 2002 rather than face possible revocation for his care of more than a dozen patients during the previous decade.
Medical board allegations said he over-prescribed dangerous medicines, created conflicts in his practice by treating multiple members of the same family, and used drugs in inappropriate combinations.
One patient died; Stein allegedly engaged in a sexual relationship with another patient whom he billed for shopping sprees he accompanied her on; one adolescent patient was prescribed 33 medications, according to the earlier board findings.
"I've seen what Dr. Stein has done to these people," Fairfax lawyer Donna Rostant told the board. "I saw the fallout on these children. It destroyed some lives."
Rostant brought a dozen civil suits against Stein alleging patient harm and said Thursday that she would do what she could to stand up for Stein's victims before the board.
Stein acknowledged that many of the cases brought against him may have stemmed from his bipolar mental disorder, but he said he has been receiving treatment.
"I believe in 'do no harm,'" he said, pleading to the board that he wants to renew his practice and possibly care for war veterans returning from Iraq. "I'm truly sorry for any damage I've done to anybody."
While some physician witnesses testified behind closed doors that Stein is capable of providing safe patient care, others worried that Stein could not be sufficiently monitored to guard against a renewal of his repeated failures in clinical judgment and care.
"If he gets a license to practice medicine, he is going to practice medicine," said the board's legal representative, Julia Bennett, noting that Stein's medical condition may be under control but that he had not proved that his clinical abilities have improved.
The board Thursday found Stein negligent in about 15 cases of patient care that predated the surrender of his license in 2002.
Stein said he has not been employed since he lost his license and has declared bankruptcy. He said his reputation has crashed in the wake of publicity about him and medical board actions.
"I walk around in shame," he told the board.
Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Labels: child abuse, medical doctor, Professional Sexual Misconduct, psychiatrist
Case of The Unnamed Orthodox Rabbi in Quebec
Case of the Unnamed Be'er Sheva Sex Offender
The Case of The Haredi Friend of a Orthodox Singer
Case of Yeedle Werdyger (Chassidic Singer)
Waiting for the Messiah of Eastern Parkway
Case of Ovadia Gershon
Case of Marni Nasia-Rubin
Case of Hen Alkobi
Crime Victims Compensation - Restitution, Compensa...
Ala. Rabbis Required To Report Suspected Child Abu...
Forgiveness and the Jewish High Holy Days


Get the latest updates on hot culinary trends, food science news, dietary research, and other food-related activities.
We'll also take a peek at the personalities who shape the food world.
When it comes to a healthy profile, avocado eaters show stellar outcomes, even though they eat higher amounts of fat overall. Smaller waists, higher levels of good cholesterol, low BMI readings, and general superior nutritional intake put lovers of avocados high on the Healthy Eating Index.
The research was based on the average daily consumption of one-half an avocado. The study also indicated that people who regularly eat avocados have half the chance for developing metabolic syndrome than those who do not consume avocados. Metabolic syndrome is a condition determined by the confluence of key risk factors that, when found together, can lead to diabetes (type-2), heart disease, or stroke.
Can Eating Apples Chase Away the Blues?
More fruits and vegetables in your diet may mean increased happiness and a sense of well-being. Apples, in particular are now being hailed as an excellent means for fighting depression, according to a British study that was described in a journal of health psychology this month.
Nearly 300 people participated in a three week diet in which they made journal entries describing their emotional and physical state as well as what they had eaten that day. The number of servings of fruits and vegetables were recorded as well.
"The results showed a strong day-to-day relationship between more positive mood and higher fruit and vegetable consumption, but not other foods," said the study. Increased feelings of happiness, calmness, and energy were also recorded. For improved benefits of mood, the researchers concluded that 7-8 half cup servings of fruits and vegetables would be required for improved positive feelings, which can be achieved by making at least half of each meal fruits and vegetables. Also, by making fruit the focus of snacks, the desired number of servings can be reached.
Can you guess what the nutrition experts of 2013 say are the best sources of healthy eating?
You may be surprised, or relieved, if any of these items are already part of your eating plan.
Which of these foodstuffs do you currently have in your pantry?
The observers of health trends included a few standard, expected items: It's no surprise that TEA is listed. The health-conscious have been singing the praises of green teas, spicy teas, and grain-focused teas for a while now, but they are now appearing front and center on restaurant menus. Also, the old staple OATMEAL, in gourmet versions with condiments like fresh herbs, roasted vegetables, or cheeses like goat and ricotta– even with poached eggs– are pumping up the volume beyond the classic Quaker Oats breakfast option. DEHYDRATED SEAWEED has been a staple of Asian diets and Japanese snack food. Lots of chip-like crunch, salty and nutty flavor disguise the Vitamins (A and B), potassium and antioxidants contained in these low calorie treats.
While almost one billion mouths suffer from hunger worldwide, many fields with unharvested crops lie rotting. Laws dictating tossing out foods with expired sell-by dates result in the dumping of perfectly good food sources. And less-than-perfect fruits and vegetables headed for grocery store shelves end up in the trash heap.
So says a recent study by GB's Institution of Mechanical Engineers which calculates that nearly "2 billion tons of food produced worldwide never makes it into a consumer's mouth." (LA Times) The study, which predicts the need to feed an additional 3 billion mouths by 2075, blames the "supply chain", an infrastructure rife with inadequacies of transportation, agricultural practices and inefficiencies such as poor storage facilities and packaging along with misused natural resources of water, land, and energy. IME also points a finger at both retailers and consumers.
I can attest to vegetables/fruit improving mental health. I'm currently in the fifth day of a "juice fast", where I consume nothing but fruit/vegetable juice freshly extracted in a juicer. I embarked on this in an experimental mood, wondering if it was true that juice fasting can improve mental/physical overall heath. And even on just day 5, I can say it definitely has. That foggy feeling has gone away, and I can concentrate better on the tasks at hand.
I've noticed in the news lately that there are a lot more kids being diagnosed with ADHD. I actually was one of those kids, but chose not to be treated. I'm beginning to think that nutrition, or lack there of, plays a huge role in this rising trend.
Fascinating. And your juicer is clearly getting a work out, too. A perfect example of technology shaping diet and food preparation preferences/ideas. Continued luck with the juice fast.


text:
THE LEAN PRODUCT PLAYBOOK
GET TIPS
ABOUT DAN OLSEN
Dan Olsen is an entrepreneur, consultant, and Lean product expert. At Olsen Solutions, he works with CEOs and product leaders to help them build great products and strong product teams, often as interim VP of Product.
Dan has worked with a range of businesses, from small, early-stage startups to large public companies, on a wide variety of web and mobile products. His clients include Facebook, Box, Microsoft, YouSendIt (now HighTail), Epocrates, Medallia, Chartboost, XING, Financial Engines, and One Medical Group.
Prior to consulting, Dan worked at Intuit, where he led the Quicken product team to record sales and profit. He also led product management at social networking pioneer Friendster, and was the cofounder and CEO of personalized news startup YourVersion.
Dan earned a BS in electrical engineering from Northwestern and an MBA from Stanford. He also earned a master's degree in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech, where he studied the Lean manufacturing principles that inspired Lean Startup.
Dan lives in Silicon Valley, where he hosts the monthly Lean Product & Lean UX Meetup. A frequent speaker at business and tech events, he enjoys sharing ideas and comparing notes with as many people as he can. Dan also gives public and private workshops.
Connect with Dan
LINKEDIN TWITTER SLIDESHARE MEETUP
© 2022 THE LEAN PRODUCT PLAYBOOK.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This landscape shows the area near Felpham where Blake's patron, the poet William Hayley, lived. Hayley's house, called the Turret, can be seen in the centre.
Inscribed by Frederick Tatham 'William Blake vouched by Frederick Tatham. subject not known. perhaps near Felpham' b.r.
From September 1800 until September 1803 Blake lived in a cottage at Felpham near Chichester, Sussex, under the patronage of the poet, biographer and man of letters William Hayley (1745–1820), to whom he had been recommended by John Flaxman. Although he was able to continue his work for Thomas Butts and other patrons, and to write much of the text of Milton, a lot of his time was taken up with increasingly uncongenial projects given him by the well-meaning but uncomprehending Hayley. These included decorating Hayley's library, painting miniature portraits and illustrating Hayley's poems and biographies of Cowper and Romney.
This watercolour shows the Church of St Mary and, in the centre, Hayley's house 'The Turret'. Blake's cottage was once identified as that shown between the two towers, but has now been established as that lit up by the perhaps visionary beams of sunlight breaking through the clouds on the right; it is similar in its general shape, with a lower annex on the right, though not in details of fenestration, to the illustration of 'Blake's Cottage at Felpham' on plate 36 of Milton (repr. Morchard Bishop, Blake's Hayley, 1951, between pp.160 and 161; Bishop also reproduces photographs of the cottage and of 'The Turret', and George Engleheart's drawing of c.1810 of the latter, showing the original appearance of the tower). The large mill on the left was a prominent feature in Felpham at the time but has since been destroyed.
It is tempting to see this watercolour as Blake's first reaction to the prospect that opened up with the move to Felpham. As he wrote to John Flaxman on 21 September 1800, three days after his arrival, 'Felpham is a sweet place for Study, because it is more Spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her Golden Gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, & their forms more distinctly seen, & my Cottage is also a Shadow of their houses' (Keynes Writings 1957, p.802).
This work was formerly inventoried by the Tate Gallery as no.3694 xii.


text:
Home » A Brief Historical Review of the Invention of the Cyclotron
A Brief Historical Review of the Invention of the Cyclotron
Fig.1 Young Prof. Ernest O. Lawrence in about 1929.
In 1929, Dr. Ernest Lawrence came across a German scientific paper, written by R. Wideroe, that described "Kinetic voltage transformation". The apparatus used amounted to a glass tube with an ion source, a small tubular electrode connected to an oscillator, and a deflection plate. This small apparatus proved that RF fields could be used to accelerate particles. Until this time, this was done using a constant high voltage. Lawrence realized that to get acceleration matching that of the current high voltage machines the array of electrodes would be quite long. He theorized that a single electrode could be used if the ion beam was bent into a circular path using a magnetic field.
Fig.2 Wideroe's drawing that inspired Lawrence's cyclotron
Fig.3 Lawrence's 1st concept of the cyclotron.
In 1930, a doctoral student began work on helping Lawrence prove his theory. Using a 4" magnet and a small vacuum chamber he began his work. The chamber was a thin brass ring capped on either end with disks sealed with red sealing wax. Inside the chamber was a hollow D shaped electrode, a slotted bar across the diameter, a filament, and a collector cup.
Fig.4 The first cyclotron - only 4 inches in diameter.
When hydrogen was introduced into the vacuum chamber, it was ionized by the electrons emitted by the hot filament. The voltage on the electrode accelerated these ions and as the energy became greater they spiraled outward and into a collector cup. This cup was attached to an electrometer, which measured the current induced by the ion beam striking it. This current was proof that Lawrence's theory was correct. Ions could be accelerated in a circular path.
The next year, a larger, 11 inch magnet was built. A new chamber and oscillator were also implemented. By 1932 protons were accelerated to over 1 million volts with this machine. This was the first time this had been accomplished in the history of physics. By this time Lawrence had already been working on construction of an even larger magnet. This became the 27-inch cyclotron.
Fig.5 M.S. Livingston, E.O. Lawrence, and the 27-inch cyclotron.
By 1945 it was discovered that these machines were limited by relativity. This means that as the particle gains more energy it gains mass. Because the RF voltage across the electrodes is constant the effect of the kick is less on the more massive ions. This results in the ions being out of phase with the RF cycle; no more acceleration. A 184" cyclotron was in the process of being built. This was converted into a frequency modulated cyclotron. In this machine the RF frequency is decreased slightly as the orbit time of the relativistic particle changes, keeping it in synchronization. This was the end of the cyclotron era and the beginning of the syncro-cyclotrons and syncrotrons - the big machines of today.
This page was written by Christopher Olsen of Fermilab
A lot of historical cyclotron photographs can be seen at our Cyclotron History Photo Album page.
Theory of Operation →


A large portion of this inventory was first prepared in 1992 as part of the New York State Historic Documents Inventory (HDI), a statewide survey of manuscripts and archives collections in repositories open to the public. Entries have been edited and updated where necessary. Additional collection summaries have been added.
Permission to reproduce, publish or display any or all of this inventory must be obtained in writing from the Bryant Library.
Corp/Agency author: BRYANT LIBRARY LOCAL HISTORY COLLECTION.
Quantity: 35 cubic ft., 154 v., 55 linear ft.
Historical/biog note: Collecting area: History of Roslyn, N.Y.
Legal citations: Hours: Mon,9-1;Thu,Fri,9-5;Wed,10-5;Tues,10:30-7. Hours may vary.
Legal citations: Telephone: 516-621-2240. ext.1 Please call for appointment.
Legal citations: Copying facilities available.
LOCATION: Bryant Library, 2 Paper Mill Road, Roslyn, NY 11576.
Title: ACCOUNT BOOK COLLECTION, 1814-1915.
Abstract: Account books of individuals and businesses largely in Roslyn, including Benjamin and William Rushmore, 1814-1843; William M. Johnson, 1850; Jeremiah Remsen, carpenter, 1816-1840; Jacob M. Kirby, blacksmith, 1853-1856; Mrs. Walter Weeks' household account, 1906-1915, and order book of Walter Weeks, 1908; workman's time book and wage records from the Long Island Lighting Company, 1906-1908; and unidentified dry goods stores, 1847-1848 and undated. Other volumes include records of cargo transfers at Roslyn wharfs, 1853-1854, and for sloops in Hempstead Harbor, 1863; and account books of the sloops RUTH T. HICKS, 1852, and GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1853-1872.
Title: H. Bogart Seaman Papers, 1732-1930.
Historical/biog note: Family of Roslyn and Oyster Bay, N.Y.
Abstract: Letters, account books, receipts, indentures, bills of sale, legal papers, licenses, wills and estate papers, maps, bonds, military papers, inventories, poetry manuscripts, genealogy, and memorabilia. Persons represented include Daniel Bogart (1787-1861), Daniel Bogart (1820-1896), Dr. Joseph H. Bogart (1846-1926), and Elbert H. Bogart. Letters, 1798-1913, concern visits, family health, accounts, roads, politics, water rights, military pensions, Joseph H. Bogart's college career, medical matters, land transactions, and genealogy. Account books include family accounts (in Dutch), 1762-1773; Frederick Siminson's record of cows and horses sold, 1775 (partly in Dutch); assessment rolls for the Town of North Hempstead, 1801 and 1808; record of births, deaths, marriages, and natural phenomena kept by Elizabeth and Mary Bogart, 1826-1857; record of medical notes, prescriptions, and diagnoses kept by Dr. Joseph H. Bogart, ca. 1895, and a scrapbook on his medical career, 1872-1918. Other items of note include bill of sale for a slave, 1743; poetry of Dr. John Ordronaux; and essays by Joseph H. Bogart while at Amherst College, 1867-1869. Other family names include Albertson, Hegeman, Onderdonk, and Townsend.
Finding aids: Unpublished finding aid.
Title: BRYANT LIBRARY RECORDS, 1878-1974.
Quantity: 22 v., 1 cubic ft.
Abstract: Minute book, 1878-1924; stock book, 1879; register of members, 1933-1967; account book, 1879-1928; accession books, ca. 1878-1953; architectural drawings by Henry Titus Aspinwall and others, 1947-1968, for Library buildings and grounds; and files of correspondence, financial records, legal papers, newsletters, clippings, receipts, contracts, programs, and other items, 1931-1974, pertaining to bequests and gifts, physical plant, legal suits, and other administrative matters.
Reproduction note: Bryant's letters to Abraham Lincoln are photocopies.
Historical/biog note: Poet, journalist, resident of Roslyn, N.Y.
letters, manuscripts, deeds, leases, agreements, accounts, lists, obituaries, and genealogy. Letters of W.C. Bryant, largely to his daughter Julia, 1840-1878, concerning Roslyn news, Bryant Library, trips, visits, health, his wife's cemetery monument, events at their estate Cedarmere, horses, business matters, Civil War, landscape design at Cedarmere, and gardening. There are photocopies of his letters to Abraham Lincoln recommending individuals for positions and commenting on political issues, 1860-1864; and a copy of a letter from Thomas Cole inviting Bryant to visit him in Catskill, 1840. Letters of Julia Bryant, 1837-1887, concern her father's affairs, visits, travel, and social news; and other family letters, 1854-1908, concerning Roslyn news, health, and W.C. Bryant's manuscripts.
Abstract: Clippings, articles, typescript text, chronologies, pamphlets, certificates, genealogy, letters, maps, photocopies of photographs, and other items pertaining to Roslyn individuals and history. Subjects include artists, authors, biography, William C. Bryant, Bryant Library, Black community, businesses, churches, clubs, community preservation, fire department, government, health, Hempstead Harbor, historic houses, other houses, Christopher Morley, organizations, paper mill, schools, transportation, and war.
Quantity: ca. 3 cubic ft.
Abstract: Correspondence, memoranda, reports, clippings, booklets, articles, flyers, petitions, photographs, and legal documents concerning community opposition to plans to build an incinerator and dump into Hempstead Harbor.
Quantity: .5 cubic ft. Typed transcript.
(1832-1883) lived in Manhasset. Rev. Samuel F.
Johnson moved to Roslyn in 1876.
Abstract: Collection includes 33 volumes kept by sisters Anna Onderdonk, 1849-1885, and Maria Onderdonk, 1851-1858, concerning trips to New York City, church and Sunday School, sewing society meetings, social life, visiting funerals, holiday entertainments, death of their mother in 1857, hired help and domestic chores, with long accounts by Maria of trips to Canada and Boston, 1850-1852; one volume kept by Dr. D.B. Whitney, 1869, concerning weather and daily activities, with very little on his medical practice; and one volume kept by Rev. Samuel F. Johnson at Amagansett, Long Island, 1852, concerning sermons preached, pastoral duties, visits, weather, and other daily news.
Quantity: ca. 16 cubic ft.
Abstract: Certificates, receipts, bonds, deeds, mortgages, accounts, letters, programs, reports, apprenticeship indentures, architectural drawings, autograph albums, pamphlets, bankbooks, bills, broadsides, leases, military papers, agreements, genealogy, clippings, wills, and estate papers pertaining to the history of Roslyn and vicinity. Subjects include land transactions, Jericho Plank Road Company, businesses, local organizations, churches, cemeteries, Civil War, commerce, shipping, fire department, local government, mills, roads, Roslyn Harbor, and schools. Family names include Clowes, Eastman, Godwin, Hegeman, Hennessey, Hicks, Kirby, Remsen, Seaman, Searing, Speedling, Tatterson, Thorn, and Wood. Items of note include sermons and theological writings of Wallace W. Kirby, 1859-1862, and a letter by Kirby mentioning a school for Black children in Roslyn, 1869; Republican canvass book for Election District No. 2, Town of North Hempstead, 1912; and architectural drawings by Calvert Vaux's firm of the Godwin estate in Roslyn, 1869.
Corp agency: G.A.R.(Grand Army of the Republic), ELIJAH WARD POST #654.
Quantity: 26 items. 1 microfilm reel.
Abstract: Post formed by Roslyn veterans of the Civil War.Includes minute books, general and special orders book, descriptive book, membership list, applications, letters, agreement for erection of soldier's monument in Roslyn Cemetery.
Historical/biog note: Charles H. Hechler (1881-1962) his wife, Catherine Hauhart Hechler (1880-1976), sons Charles (1912-1995) and Ken (1914- .) Charles H. Hechler was superintendent of "Harbor Hill," the Roslyn estate of Clarence H. Mackay from 1907-1938. In 1931 this section of the Roslyn area became part of the Incorporated Village of East Hills. Son Charles remained in East Hills, son Ken moved to West Virginia and became active in politics. In 1959 Ken was elected to Congress and later served as Secretary of State of West Virginia.
and local political activities. Also includes correspondence, limited employment and salary records, and other records relating to the operation of the C. H. Mackay estate.
Additional phys form: 9 microfilm reels.
Historical/biog note: The family of John William Mackay, his wife Marie Louise Hungerford Mackay, their son Clarence H. Mackay, and his wife Katherine Duer Mackay. The Clarence Mackays lived on their Roslyn estate, "Harbor Hill," designed by Stanford White. Katherine Mackay was founder of the Equal Franchise Society.
Abstract: Newspaper clippings on the business, political, social, andcultural lives of John William Mackay, Marie Louise Hungerford Mackay, Clarence H. Mackay, and Katherine Duer Mackay. Subjects include silver mining, Postal Telegraph Company, Commercial Cable Company, new technologies in telegraphy, labor unions, strikes, monopolies, government control and regulation of telegraphy business, woman suffrage, temperance, motherhood, divorce, high society, national politics, Roslyn, women in the work place, auto races, horse racing, fashion, and philanthropy of the Mackays.
Title: MAP COLLECTION, [ca. 1675]-1984.
Reproduction note: Photocopies or facsimiles in part.
Company maps of Roslyn, 1886-1941, on 1 reel microfilm.
Finding aids: Card file index.
Historical/biog note: Edna I. Moger and George F. Moger purchased a home in Roslyn in 1904. Active in local civic affairs, their son Roy, was born in 1907.
Abstract: Business correspondence; personal receipts and billheads for household purchases in Roslyn, Brooklyn & Manhattan.
Historical/biog note: Christopher Darlington Morley was an author and resident of Roslyn Estates, N.Y.
Harry Scherman, Meredith Wood, William Colescott, John Canrad, Alfred Lee, Cyril Lewis, Ken McCormack, Rose Modisette, and Jerry Vogel. On long term loan from Nassau County.
Corp/Agency author: CRISTOPHER MORLEY KNOTHOLE ASSOCIATION.
Historical/biog note: Christopher Morley (1890-1957) was a journalist and poet living in Roslyn Estates, N.Y. His writing studio was called "Knothole."
Morley's studio in Roslyn and his memory.
Quantity: ca. 1 cubic ft.
Abstract: Papers pertaining to her books on Christopher Morley, THREE HOURS FOR LUNCH and CHRISTOPHER MORLEY ON LONG ISLAND, including correspondence, drafts and a finished manuscript, reviews, research notes, and other miscellaneous items, including some letters from Morley family members.
Title: PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION, [ca. 1860]-1989.
images by local photographer, William H. Pickering.
by Jacob Sutton Mott, of the Roslyn area in the 18880s.
Finding aids: Index of subjects.
Title: RECORD BOOK COLLECTION, 1852-1902.
book of baptisms, marriages, probationers and list of members, 1861-1875.
Quantity: 5 v., 2 microfilm reels.
Location of orig/dup: Originals are at the Roslyn Cemetery.
Abstract: Notebooks containing photocopies of interment record cards kept by the Roslyn Cemetery, 1861-1984, giving location, plot, owner, and deceased for burials back to 1896; and microfilm of the original record cards.
Historical/biog note: Grist mill which began operation ca. 1706.
Abstract: Daybooks, sales records, ledgers, and cashbooks from the grist mill run by Benjamin Hicks and his brothers.
Historical/biog note: In 1916 mill was given to group of trustees.It was operated as a museum and later a tea house. Ownership transferred to Nassau County in 1976.
Abstract: Financial records, minutes of the Board of Trustees, correspondence, museum inventory and appraisal.
Historical/biog note: High School level Regents certification began in Roslyn in 1904. Charter received from NY State in 1907. High School Building erected in 1926 on land donated by Clarence Mackay. First Yearbook produced in 1927.
Abstract: Missing yearbooks: 1946,47,48; 1952,53; 1979,80;1989.
Quantity: ca. 4 cubic ft.
beautification projects and the War Memorial Building.
Quantity: 88 microfilm reels; bound copies.
Historical/ biog. note: Roslyn News began publishing in 1878. Large gaps in all existing holdings of this publication.
changed its name to Roslyn Visiting Nurse Association.
of clippings and announcements, 1953-1971.
Historical/biog note: Roslyn contractor and builder.
Abstract: Papers include statement books, account books, work records, diaries with accounts, clippings, bills, and photographs.
Finding Aid: Cataloged with manuscripts.
Historical/biog note: Roslyn area only.
Abstract: Some phone books arranged by address.


Post-industrial age guru Alvin Toffler, whose million-selling Future Shock and other books anticipated the disruption and transformation brought about by the rise of digital technology, has died at 87.
He died in his sleep on Monday at his home in the Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles, said Yvonne Merkel, a spokeswoman for his Reston, Virginia-based consulting firm Toffler Associates.
Mr Toffler, one of the world's most famous "futurists" who is credited as the source of the expression "information overload", was far from alone in seeing the economy shift from manufacturing and mass production to a computerised and information-based model.
But few were more effective at popularising the concept, predicting the effects and assuring the public that the traumatic upheavals of modern times were part of a larger and more hopeful story.
Mr Toffler, was born in New York City to Jewish Polish immigrants. A graduate of New York University, he was a Marxist and union activist in his youth and continued to question the fundamentals of the market economy long after his politics moderated. He knew the industrial life first hand through his years as a factory worker in Ohio.
Future Shock, a term he first used in a 1965 magazine article, was how he defined the growing feeling of anxiety brought on by the sense that life was changing at a bewildering and ever-accelerating pace.
His book combined an understanding tone and page-turning urgency as he diagnosed contemporary trends and headlines, from war protests to the rising divorce rate, as symptoms of a historical cycle overturning every facet of life.
"We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots – religion, nation, community, family, or profession – are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust," he wrote.
Mr Toffler offered a wide range of predictions and prescriptions, some more accurate than others.
He forecast "a new frontier spirit" that could well lead to underwater communities, "artificial cities beneath the waves" and also anticipated the founding of space colonies – a concept that fascinated Toffler admirer Newt Gingrich, the former House of Representatives speaker and US presidential candidate.
In Future Shock, released in 1970, Mr Toffler also presumed that the rising general prosperity of the 1960s would continue indefinitely.
But Mr Toffler attracted millions of followers, including many in the business community, and the book's title became part of the general culture.
Curtis Mayfield and Herbie Hancock were among the musicians who wrote songs called Future Shock and the book influenced such science fiction novels as John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider. More recently, Samantha Bee hosted a recurring Future Shock segment on Comedy Central.
In the decades following Future Shock, he wrote such books as Powershift and The Adaptive Corporation, lectured worldwide, taught at several schools and met everyone from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to network executives and military officials.
China cited him along with Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Gates and others as the Westerners who most influenced the country even as communist officials censored his work.
In 2002, the management consultant organisation Accenture ranked him eighth on its list of the top 50 business intellectuals.
"I got a realistic picture of how things really are made – the energy, love and rage that are poured into ordinary things we take for granted," he later wrote.
He had dreamed of being the next John Steinbeck, but found his talents were better suited for journalism. He wrote for the pro-union publication Labor's Daily and in the 1950s was hired by Fortune magazine to be its labor columnist.
The origins of Future Shock began in the 1960s when Mr Toffler worked as a researcher for IBM and other technology companies.


What's better than hot chocolate to warm up on a cold day? Especially when it's Dunkin' Donuts Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate! Now you can easily make this creamy, chocolatey delight right at home and it can be made right in the microwave. You'll love how simple the recipe is with only a handful of ingredients. Go ahead, warm up and sip away. Enjoy!
Mix sugar, sea salt and cocoa in large mug.
Take milk out of microwave, add vanilla extract. Stir to combine. Gradually add hot milk to cocoa mixture in mug, stirring until well blended.
Top with whipped cream and drizzle caramel syrup over top. Sprinkle the smallest pinch of sea salt over the caramel. Enjoy this luscious hot beverage!


text:
A guide to 'good enough' homeschooling
Claire Gillespie
Illustrated | iStock
I've never, not for a fraction of a second, considered homeschooling my children. They both thrive at school and, as a work-from-home parent all of the time — not just during global pandemics — I need that precious alone time. Plus, my kids learn all sorts of mathematical and scientific stuff I could never even try to teach them.
But now — like millions of other parents across the world — I've found myself a reluctant homeschooler. And we're not just talking about the short-term. I could probably wing it for a few days with art supplies and a little help from Beverly Cleary and J.K. Rowling. Beyond that, I really have no idea what I'm doing. I've had to take a social media hiatus because pictures of other parents' lesson plans have me in a cold sweat.
Luckily, Cindy Hemming, an elementary school teacher from Toronto, Canada, has some reassuring words for me — and anyone else who's feeling majorly out of their depth right now.
"My advice to parents would be to enjoy spending time with their children and not worry overly about academic worksheets and meeting standards," she says. "Parents and families are under a great deal of stress in the current climate. Asking parents to take over the teaching role for eight hours a day is an enormous task that can put even more stress on both parent and child. Mental health for everyone in the family unit needs to be a priority right now. Stressed out, overwhelmed parents don't teach well and stressed out, overwhelmed kids don't learn well."
That doesn't mean we can just go on early summer vacation, though. While Hemming worries about families who are "attempting to do worksheets and online assignments hour after hour each day," she says some academic activity is important to maintain children's skill levels.
It turns out that "some academic activity" is a fairly broad category. "Hands-on, real world learning is powerful and can take any number of forms, including teaching life skills that children need to learn from their parents anyway," Hemming says.
She points out that, for example, baking helps students learn about fractions, reading the instructions to a new board game is the perfect reading comprehension activity, and penning letters to loved ones or elderly community members is an authentic writing exercise. "We often lament that these days kids don't have the life skills they need when graduating from school," she says. "Here's an opportunity to fill that gap."
Hemming suggests thinking about how you can incorporate learning into quality family time, daily responsibilities, and your child's interests. "You are, and have always been, your child's most important teacher," she says. "Spend time together. Play. Bake. Make art. Talk together. Grow a garden, Read, read, read. Your child is probably doing a lot of learning without you even realizing it. The silver lining in this incredibly difficult situation is the opportunity to connect with your child. Focus on that most of all."
I realize that not everyone's like me, and for many people, a stricter schedule can be a good thing. Jillian Bershtein, professor and student teacher supervisor at The College of New Jersey, thinks there are many positives to sticking to a set roster.
"Kids thrive on schedules, especially when the world is 'off-schedule,'" she says. Right now, she's homeschooling her two kids (8 and 10 years) and they "start at 9 a.m. sharp daily."
But they're normally finished with the academics by noon, and the PE and arts they do in the afternoon are mostly self-directed by the kids. "Keeping a schedule helps my high-anxiety child have purpose and control," Bershtein says. This echoes what friends of mine have said: Having a daily routine is helping to keep their kids' worries at bay.
I'm still not convinced that I have to start homeschool at 9 a.m. sharp to make sure my kids are equipped to deal with the pressures of pandemic life. Fit Learning Founder Kimberly Berens, Ph.D., agrees that we shouldn't stress too much over keeping rigorous schedules, but she does recommend one must-have tool to set clear boundaries between work time and break time: a timer.
"When your child needs to work on school assignments, set a timer for an amount of time that is reasonable for your child and will increase their chances of success, which may only be a few minutes for some learners," Berens says. Your child doesn't need to complete the assignment in one sitting, but they do need to work consistently during the timed work period. When the timer goes off, set it again for a break period (as short or as long as you like) where your child can stretch their legs, play, interact with their phone, etc. It's a flexible method that can be adapted to each family and their particular schedule.
And if your child is putting the effort into an assignment but doesn't seem to understand it, or is unable to complete it, let their teacher know you need help. "You're not required to act like your child's teacher and attempt to teach the lessons — that's not your job," Berens says.
Another vital component of your homeschooling toolkit is patience. "Teaching is tough. Period," Bershtein says. "Educators spend years perfecting their craft. Be patient with the teachers who are trying to rearrange their lives and teaching style on the fly. Be patient with your vulnerable children as they navigate life's changes and expectations, and be patient with yourself. Know that the kids will bounce back from this loss of true academic time and their regular classroom teachers will be there with open arms when the pandemic is over."
"We're all doing the best we can in this extremely difficult situation and doing the best you can is all teachers can ask of parents," Hemming adds. "Keep doing the best you can. You are enough."
Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.
More from Claire Gillespie
How to talk to teens about voting
Why kids are obsessed with cars, trucks, and other vehicles
Why is my kid so annoying?
Catherine Garcia


text:
Il Palazzo Fizzarotti è uno storico edificio di Bari in Puglia.

Eretto nel 1910 in stile eclettico nel centro della città, fu commissionato dal banchiere e imprenditore Emanuele Fizzarotti e progettato dall'architetto Ettore Bernich, caposcuola dell'eclettismo italiano. Il palazzo conserva al suo interno sale riccamente decorate, ciascuna con un preciso stile artistico e l'impiego e l'associazione di materiali e tecniche diverse.

Storia

Costruito al di sopra della sorgente sotterranea "Mare Isabella", Palazzo Fizzarotti presenta più strati architettonici. Nel suo interno sono visibili strutture del XIII secolo risalenti a vecchi conventi e stazioni di ristoro esterne alle mura della città medioevale. Nel 1850, con l'abbattimento delle mura medioevali e l'ampiamento della città attraverso il quartiere murattiano, vengono connesse due zone di suolo da Nicola Lagattola. Nel novembre 1858 gli eredi Lagattola vendono il terreno a Nicola Loiacono che costruisce piano terra e primo piano in stile barocchetto, demolendo e inglobando al suo interno le antiche strutture duocentesche. L'ultima erede Loiacono, Rosa, vende nel 1879 l'intero complesso all'imprenditore Emanuele Fizzarotti che lo modifica, sopraelevando il secondo e terzo piano e applicando una facciata gotica veneziana.

Il Fizzarotti, un uomo estremamente attento alla cultura, all'arte e alla musica, volle fare del Palazzo un contenitore culturale, infatti la sua costruzione e decorazione divenne un'opera di mecenatismo che impegnò maestranze a livello locale e nazionale. Il costruttore fu Nicolangelo Favia, sotto la direzione di Augusto Corradini che disegnò e dipinse anche opere pregevoli fra cui L'arrivo a Bari nel 1002 del Doge Orseo II che libera la città ed Il corteo nuziale di Federico II e Iolonda de Brienne. Alla maestria del pittore Rega si deve il meraviglioso ciclo del Salone delle Arti e del lavoro e a maestranze provenienti da Venezia e Ravenna i fregi e le opere murarie.

In seguito alla scomparsa di Emanuele Fizzarotti, sopraggiunta nel 1926, il palazzo divenne prima, negli anni 1930, proprietà e sede della Banca del Fucino e poi, dopo lo sbarco degli alleati nel sud Italia, sede del Circolo Ufficiali Alleati. Tra gli anni 1960 e 1980 fu invece sede degli uffici della Comunità Europea. Nel 1947 Giosuè Poli prende la gestione di Palazzo Fizzarotti a nome dell'Immobiliare Pugliese S.p.A. A partire da quel momento, l'Immobiliare Pugliese e i suoi azionisti si sono impegnati prima nella salvaguardia del palazzo da pressioni politiche e finanziarie, quindi poi al suo recupero e valorizzazione.

Sede dell'Archivio Poli
Oggi Palazzo Fizzarotti è anche sede Il dell'Archivio Poli, che custodisce il contributo del molfettese Giosuè Poli, dirigente sportivo, organizzatore e atleta, nella ristrutturazione sociale del territorio pugliese e dello sport italiano, durante e dopo la seconda guerra mondiale.

L'archivio è al momento in fase di digitalizzazione e può essere consultato per appuntamento. Comprende, tra gli altri, rari documenti, fotografie e lettere anche dal fronte a partire dal 1915 sino al 1969.

Descrizione

Facciata
La facciata del "Palazzo Fizzarotti" è rivolta a mezzogiorno ed è strutturata in cinque arcate ogivali, affiancate, all'estremità, da due torri, sormontate da cupole finemente decorate, con mosaici a foglia d'oro, raffiguranti il "sol levante

Quattro medaglioni a mosaico policromo con fondo a foglia d'oro ornano la facciata rappresentano la Fenicia; il vecchio stemma della città di Bari con il mitico fondatore della città, "Barinon"; lo stemma della città di Lecce, da cui la Famiglia Fizzarotti proveniva; l'allusivo stemma personale di Emanuele Fizzarotti "quamquam fractae vulnerant" (malgrado siano rotte feriscono ancora).

I balconi, le finestre, trifore e bifore, sono in pietra merlettata come tutta la facciata. Quest'ultima manifesta un armonioso contrasto tra la compatta ma semplice pietra e le linee degli archi, a sesto acuto che, insieme ai pilastri in rilievo, con relativi basamenti e capitelli, incorniciano tre livelli di finestre bifore rastremate.
II piano terzo sopra è percorso, per tutta la sua lunghezza, da un loggiato, il cui colonnato sostiene il pregevole ed importante cornicione.

Lo scalone monumentale

Attraversato il portone in massello di quercia intagliato ci troviamo nell'androne, aperto sul retro in un giardino monumentale ospitante una fontana con la statua del Nettuno. Lo scalone monumentale, come lo stesso giardino, sono realizzati con la stessa cura di particolari e diversità di tecniche esecutive che caratterizzano le sale di rappresentanza del primo piano. terminano al terzo piano in una volta a crociera decorata con un cielo stellato di un intenso azzurro rappresentante i dodici segni zodiacali. Nella sovrabbondanza di elementi decorativi, stemmi e piccoli inserti narrativi, si distinguono quattro dipinti murari rappresentanti delle quattro stagioni, personificate da figure in costumi vagamente quattrocenteschi. Due delle quattro scene, tutte costituite da tre figure, si attengono alla tradizionale iconografia dedicati alla mietitura e alla vendemmia. Due, più "libere", si presentano una la composizione riguardante l'inverno e l'altra, con la coppia dei giovani innamorati in un paesaggio fiorito, allude alla primavera.

Le sale di rappresentanza

Grande interesse e attenzione suscitano le quattro sale di rappresentanza: il Salone delle Arti e del Lavoro, il Salone Trecentesco, il Salone Rosa e il Salone del Caminetto a cui si accede attraverso il cosiddetto Salottino d'attesa dove si trova un importante mosaico pavimentale che raffigura la testa alata di Mercurio, dio del Commercio, chiara allusione alle attività finanziarie redditizie del proprietario del palazzo, esponente di primo piano della Bari moderna.

Note

Bibliografia

Altri progetti

Fizzarotti

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia