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The Surgeon General recently published a detailed study of loneliness in the United States. Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. Social isolation and loneliness increase the risk for premature death, heart disease, and stroke by some 30 percent — or the same as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Additionally, socially isolated older adults have a higher chance of developing dementia than their peers.
A medical study cited in Surgeon General’s report struck me as really rich: “The lack of social connection may increase susceptibility to viruses and respiratory illness.” Where was the reliance on this report by the “experts” when they locked us in our homes for Covid?
The federal government’s solution to this deadly epidemic is its plan to establish a “National Strategy to Advance Social Connection.” Maybe this is precisely what is wrong. Since the Great Society programs in the 1960s, the federal government’s ever-expanding regulation of our lives has encouraged us to look to the government for help instead of each other.
The National Strategy includes “Cultivating a Culture of Connection.” But then why do Washington D.C.’s power brokers, the media, and various hustlers of all colors insist on telling us that white people have inborn bias and manipulate us to shun those who are not of our skin color or sexual preference? “Culture of connection” my eye!
And one more thing. It is curious that simultaneously artificial intelligence is promoted as the next best thing in medicine — even replacing mental health therapists. Ironically, research has shown that the patient-physician relationship can be more therapeutic than some medications. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t want to talk to a machine. Even the drive-through at Jack-in-the-Box has real people behind the microphone.
My guest and I will discuss these things and a whole lot more today.
Dr. Renée S. Kohanski, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist with fellowship training in forensic psychiatry. She completed her residency at Georgetown University, where she served as Chief Resident, and her fellowship at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Kohanski has enjoyed a broad-based practice in academic, community, and forensic psychiatry. She has been a board examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia and the University of Connecticut Schools of Medicine. She has also served on the Editorial Advisory Board of MDEdge Psychiatry. Dr. Kohanski currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons.
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