Fellow med students, do not join AMSA, they are promoting altie BS. Orac writes at Respectful Insolence, a blog I can recommend to those interested in medicine and confronting alternative medicine's unproven claims, especially on Fridays with his Friday Dose of Woo. This news about AMSA is disturbing but not surprising, it reminds me of why I won't join the AMA which has become a pathetic anti-consumer tort reform-based lobbying group rather than a altie medicine muckraker and physician advocacy organization.

His mockery of Patch Adams makes me happy as well. I can't quite figure out what it is I dislike so much about Patch Adams (who used to come yearly to my undergrad campus to talk to the premeds). His laughter-induced-healing crap stinks of altie woo as well. Especially since I found him to be about as funny as foot fungus. Then there is this crazy and almost Scientology-based view of mental health:

Adams caught the attention of Scott Rodgers, M.D., assistant dean of Students, when he labeled depression as a "selfish act" and spoke against the use of psychotropic medications as treatment.

"To me depression is a symptom of a disease called loneliness," Adams said. "You cannot be depressed and hold someone you love in your mind at the same time - it is impossible."

Rodgers, a psychiatrist who has seen many patients with mental illness, labeled the speaker's advice as 'malpractice.'

"I was shocked and dismayed to hear a famous and influential physician speak in this way about mental illness," Rodgers said.

"While I am the first to admit that we all need love in our lives, I can tell you that I have seen many patients with plenty of love and support who nevertheless succumb to such illnesses as depression. For these patients, and for others without love and support, medications may represent a lifesaving alternative and should not be avoided."

What a creep. Anyway, we salute Respectful Insolence, a great science blog.