Differential diagnosis maze… Maybe you’ve had the experience of making an appointment with your primary care physician to discuss some unexplained symptoms only to be told that you might have one of three different diseases or conditions. Many people receive a differential diagnosis when either they or a loved one presents at a hospital emergency...Read More

Winter is here… Between the New Year, the State of the Union, the State of the States, Super Bowl Madness…this is also the award season for feature films, television productions, and documentaries. On January 15, 2015, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced their nominations for both feature films and documentaries. Within minutes...Read More

“Cottonwood Tucson’s Family Program week is about creating change. Often, families come into family week fearful, angry, distraught and obsessed.” Behaviors are logical and learned… When family members arrive at Cottonwood Tucson to participate in our Family Program they can’t imagine feeling better, getting healthy. They struggle to understand why they should participate in the...Read More

Have you heard the term “societal exhaustion”? It could be you’ve never heard the exact term “societal exhaustion”, but if you’re like the average person then your imagination will allow you to envision a day in your own life. You get up, you check your cell phone for messages, you glance at the television to...Read More

Anticipating a surgical procedure… It is probably safe to say that no one looks forward to having a surgical procedure. Of course, depending on one’s medical condition, a successful surgery is what a patient anticipates and desires. Non-emergency surgeries (elective) are preceded with considerable pre-op examinations, like EKGs, lung x-rays, blood work, maybe an MRI...Read More

How will you honor our Veterans this year? Of late when Memorial Day or Veterans Day holidays approach we notice people will turn to the social media platforms to thank their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who served. Maybe they change their own profile photo to one of their father or mother. You will...Read More

Cottonwood’s Sonoran Desert landscape is a living workshop! “…a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day.”  Octavia E. Butler – American Writer  Workshop is a very positive word. If you think about your home environment, you might have a workshop...Read More

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Trauma occurs when a life event, usually one that threatens or causes great physical or emotional harm, overwhelms the brain’s inbuilt chemical and physiological defenses to stress. Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that sometimes develops after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical...Read More

Philoctetes, wounded, is abandoned by the Greek expedition en route to Troy, detail of an Attic red-figure stamnos, ca. 460 BC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) What can we learn from a Greek tragedy? Do you have vivid memories of a high school class where the syllabus included Greek tragedies? Maybe it was an English honors class...Read More

Logo of the United States National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Examining major depressive disorder (MDD) When a discussion of depression is in the news most people tend to think that there is only one kind of depression. It is those who are diagnosed with depression...Read More