Psychiatrist

Walter Oglesby, the Georgia man accused in the brutal 1984 machete slaying of his girlfriend, "can wear the mask of sanity for hours on end, but underneath that he is as crazy as you can be," a psychiatrist testified yesterday. The psychiatrist, Dr. John Rushton, testifying for the defense, told a Camden jury that Oglesby, 34, was insane on Sept. 29, 1984, when, in the Hillside Motor Lodge on Route 38 in Cherry Hill, he inflicted more than 50 stab wounds on Muriel Russell, then 32 and the mother of his 7-year-old son. Today, the prosecution's psychiatrist, Dr. Kenneth Weiss, is expected to take the stand to rebut the defense's contention that Oglesby was insane.

A psychiatrist who helped establish the professional criteria for diagnosing mental disorders testified yesterday that surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead is not suffering from a personality disorder, as other mental- health experts have asserted. Appearing on behalf of Whitehead at the Baby M trial, Dr. Donald F. Klein testified that Wynnewood psychiatrist Marshall D. Schechter improperly diagnosed Whitehead as having a "mixed personality disorder. " In his diagnosis, prepared for the baby's court-appointed guardian, Schechter said he used the criteria established in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, referred to as DSM- III. Klein, a practicing psychiatrist in New York City and a medical professor at Columbia University, testified yesterday that he had been on the 19-member task force that helped write the manual.

Testifying at the Baby M trial yesterday, a psychiatrist hired by attorneys for William and Elizabeth Stern said that Mary Beth Whitehead has a "mix of personality difficulties" and that her husband, Richard, suffers from "intermittent alcoholism. " The psychiatrist, Dr. Allwyn J. Levine, recommended that the court award custody of the 11-month-old girl to the Sterns, of Tenafly, Bergen County, and also terminate Mary Beth Whitehead's legal rights as the child's mother. The latter step is necessary if Elizabeth Stern is to adopt the child.

The state Board of Medicine has filed a misconduct charge against a Brandywine Hospital psychiatrist accused of having sexual relations with a patient over an 11-year period. The administrative action accuses Dr. Kenneth R. Sandler of Malvern of having had a relationship with a 53-year-old West Chester woman who had been his patient. According to the show-cause order, the woman became a patient of the doctor in 1976 or 1977. She had been referred to Sandler by her family doctor after suffering anxiety attacks, the order says.

Tawana Brawley's bizarre behavior in the hours following her reappearance last November formed "a biologically impossible pattern" - proof that she was "pretending to have disabilities," says a noted psychiatrist who analyzed evidence in the case. Dr. Park Elliott Dietz, one of two psychiatrists who researched the racially charged case for New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, concluded that Brawley was suffering from a "condition of malingering," in which a "patient consciously and deliberately displays false physical or emotional symptoms.

Mahmood Ghahramani, 84, of Meadowbrook, a psychiatrist, died Sunday, Oct. 30, of cancer at home. For 30 years, Dr. Ghahramani maintained a practice in Northeast Philadelphia, and for 20 years, until retiring in 2010, he was on the staff of the Ann Klein Forensic Center at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Ghahramani was also affiliated with Lower Bucks Hospital and St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne. He held teaching and research positions at Temple University Medical School and Hahnemann University, and often appeared as an expert witness in New Jersey Superior Courts.

Martin J. "Tex" Durkin, 58, a psychiatrist with a passion for boxing, died of gastric cancer last Friday at his home in Meadowbrook. Dr. Durkin had a psychiatry practice with offices at Nazareth and Holy Redeemer Hospitals and also was on the staff of St. Gabriel's Hall, a home for disadvantaged children. He was born and raised in West Oak Lane and got his nickname because of his size - he weighed more than 12 pounds at birth and grew to be 6-foot-4. He graduated from Bishop McDevitt High School in 1961 and La Salle University in 1965.

Kenneth R. Weller, 63, of St. Davids, a psychiatrist, died of cancer Sunday, May 8, under hospice care at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Dr. Weller maintained a practice in Bryn Mawr and was a consulting psychiatrist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; the Children's Home in Mount Holly; the Community Alternatives group home and shelter in Cherry Hill; Brookfield Academy in Cherry Hill, for children with behavioral and personality disorders; and...

When Bedlam Revisited begins, the reaction it elicits is: "Oh no, not another comedy routine about psychiatrists!" When it is over, the reaction is: "Oh no, another not-very-funny comedy routine about psychiatrists. " To those who have seen other shows by Ron Litman at Theater Center Philadelphia - this is his fourth appearance there in one-man shows of his own creation - a third reaction might be: Why is Litman taking on the weary theme of psychiatry when he is so good at humorously devastating political and social targets?

A Manhattan psychiatrist has been indicted on charges he used his couch to make a killing in the stock market. Dr. Robert Howard Willis, 50, allegedly took inside information about BankAmerica stock that a female patient had mentioned in discussing her marital problems - and went out and bought thousands of shares. The stock shot up, and Willis allegedly raked in $27,475 in profits in a little more than a month. Here's how it all happened, according to a Manhattan federal grand jury: The unidentified patient was telling Willis about her concerns of "substantial upheavals" in her marriage if a business deal her husband kept talking about went through in early 1986.

It was a challenge to get the label rip started Saturday. So many "psychiatric survivors" were milling around outside the Convention Center that it was hard to get them to pick one of the big cards printed with names of mental illnesses. "Who wants a psychotic one?" yelled Faith Rhyne, a North Carolina woman who belongs to MindFreedom International, an Oregon-based group that helped organize the protest outside the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. "Who wants obsessive-compulsive?"

DR. RICHARD N. Smith cultivated things. Not just the plants in his well-stocked garden (where he could recite all of their Latin names), but people, especially children, who thrived under his skill and compassion as a child psychiatrist for 50 years. "He was always thinking of people," said his son Steve Smith. "He was loved and respected by everyone who knew him. " Richard worked in numerous psychiatric venues throughout the region over the years, working primarily with children and their families, many of them seriously troubled.

Richard N. Smith cultivated things. Not just the plants in his well-stocked garden (he could recite all of their Latin names), but also people, especially children, who thrived under his skill and compassion as a child psychiatrist for 50 years. "He was always thinking of people," said son Steve. "He was loved and respected by everyone who knew him. " Dr. Smith, 83, of Jenkintown, died at home Monday, March 12, of pancreatic cancer. Over the years, he worked in numerous psychiatric venues throughout the region, primarily with children and their families, many of them seriously troubled.

NEW YORK - The musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever has undergone a sex-change operation. When it opened on Broadway in 1965, it was about a woman named Daisy with a distinct hidden 18th-century personality named Melinda - and the psychiatrist who falls in love with Melinda, the alter ego. It opened again Sunday night on Broadway, a completely reconsidered show. Now it's about a man named David with a hidden 1940s personality named Melinda - and the psychiatrist who falls in love with Melinda, the alter ego. On a Clear Day You Can See Forever has also undergone a change in sexual orientation.

Mahmood Ghahramani, 84, of Meadowbrook, a psychiatrist, died Sunday, Oct. 30, of cancer at home. For 30 years, Dr. Ghahramani maintained a practice in Northeast Philadelphia, and for 20 years, until retiring in 2010, he was on the staff of the Ann Klein Forensic Center at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Ghahramani was also affiliated with Lower Bucks Hospital and St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne. He held teaching and research positions at Temple University Medical School and Hahnemann University, and often appeared as an expert witness in New Jersey Superior Courts.

Before a scrum of reporters, attorney George Yacoubian Jr. stated the obvious: His client's mental state is a matter of debate. Yacoubian represents Linda Ann Weston, the 51-year-old ex-con charged with kidnapping and torturing four malnourished intellectually disabled adults who were found locked and chained inside a Tacony cellar. The crime scene rivaled Gary Heidnik's House of Horrors. After a status hearing Monday, Yacoubian expressed concern with Weston's inability to "have an intelligent conversation" and communicate with him about the case.

Dr. John Albert Koltes, 88, of Roxborough, a psychiatrist, died of heart failure on Thursday, Sept. 29, at home. Dr. Koltes graduated from Northeast High School and attended the University of Pennsylvania. While serving in the Army Reserve during World War II, he earned a medical degree from Jefferson Medical College. He interned at Abington Memorial Hospital; completed residencies in psychiatry at Jefferson, Friend's Hospital, and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; and trained in psychoanalysis at the Philadelphia Association of Psychoanalysis.

READING - A woman who said she secretly gave birth in her bathtub five times, killed one of the babies, and hid all five bodies in a closet pleaded guilty to murder Thursday and was sentenced to the maximum 20 to 40 years in prison. Michele Kalina, 46, of Reading, conceived the babies through a long affair with a coworker and hid the pregnancies from him and her husband. She told a psychiatrist she had wrapped each baby with a towel and then stored the body in a tub or container in a locked closet.

A University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor has filed a complaint with the federal Office of Research Integrity charging that two of his colleagues engaged in research misconduct by allowing their names to be placed on a study published 10 years ago that was ghostwritten by a "medical communications company. " The study, which was funded by what is now GlaxoSmithKline and the National Institutes of Health, looked at the impact of GSK's antidepressant drug Paxil on depression in patients with bipolar disorder.

Kenneth R. Weller, 63, of St. Davids, a psychiatrist, died of cancer Sunday, May 8, under hospice care at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Dr. Weller maintained a practice in Bryn Mawr and was a consulting psychiatrist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; the Children's Home in Mount Holly; the Community Alternatives group home and shelter in Cherry Hill; Brookfield Academy in Cherry Hill, for children with behavioral and personality disorders; and...