“Dr. Sanity” has written a book
I bet a lot of you remember blogger Pat Santy, otherwise known as Dr. Sanity. She was a member of the Sanity Squad, back when we did podcasts for PJ Media long, long ago.
Even though Pat hasn’t been blogging for many years (she stopped right after Obama’s re-election in 2012), I’ve kept in touch with her and she’s doing fine and has been busy. Plus, she hasn’t given up writing and I’m pleased to report that she’s written a book.
You may remember that Pat is a woman of great accomplishment – doctor, psychiatrist, jet pilot, NASA member including being the flight doctor for the ill-fated Challenger launch, blogger, and now lay Dominican in a healing prayer ministry. And I probably left something out there; her life has been very full.
Dr. Santy’s book is entitled Prodigal Daughter: A Journey with Mary. It’s a memoir that includes the earlier days of her life plus the more recent re-awakening of her Catholic faith. I haven’t read it yet, but knowing Pat, I would bet it’s fascinating.
I hope to read the book in the not-too-distant future, and will report back on that, but I feel confident recommending it to you even without reading it. Pat’s one of the most interesting people I know, and she’s a good writer, too – as those of you familiar with her blog probably already know.
Circa 2007 I found your site from a link “ Dr. Sanity” had to it. I do not remember how I originally found her site.
It is not available at Amazon.They don’t know if it will be again. Can you get it anywhere online?
That is quite a coincidence. I spent some serious time a few weeks ago trying to recollect, and once recollecting, trying to track down the writings of the former NASA psychiatrist I had seen mentioned here.
I found some of her writings which I saved, and also where she still ( apparently) practices : which, this latter, is information now officially memory-holed and forgotten for my part.
My interest was the result of a question that had something to do with the topics of traits and dispositions we are presently discussing, though I cannot now recall the particular question I thought she may have answered.
In many ways she was as ahead of the “got it” curve as was Angelo Codevilla, and with as much penetration and clarity, though in different respects and focus.
Zaphod, having referenced Quine, has caused me to take a dive back into neglected materials in the last few days, and to revisit some old issues that were once pretty academic; but which are now, and have been for some decades of social upheaval, critically core questions: among them, principally, the Question of Universals.
In any event, I will be visiting the office later, and might be able to respond to your latest on something better than this damn hand held.
expat:
It’s available through Amazon. If you click on my link in the post, and then click on the link “See All Buying Options” (towards the upper right of the book’s page) it will take you to the way to buy it. If you do that through the link in the post, I believe it will still give me the 4% commission from Amazon.
It can also be purchased directly from the publisher. Here is the publisher’s page for the book.
Having a psychiatrist as THE flight doctor for the Challenger team does not make much medical sense to me. Is it possible she was a real doctor then, and went into psychiatric training after the disaster? Lots of people go into psychiatry in a generally futile attempt to mentally heal or discover themselves.
I will say I remember the general tone of Dr. Sanity’s writings and found the majority of them agreeable.
I always enjoyed her posts. A most remarkable woman.
Dr. Pat Santy has written a book?!! Huzzah!
I’ll put it on my Christmas hint list. Her blog was super. I am not sure, as time does not necessarily cloud memory, but it does pile on other stuff to remember, but I may have come to NeoNeocon through a link from her, too.
The ” see all buying options “, at Amazon is a dead end. It must not have been released to Amazon yet.
But New Hope Publications has it in stock!
Cicero:
As you must knaow, psychiatrists are full and complete MDs. What’s more, to be the flight doctor, she had to go through full NASA training including, if memory serves, learning to a fly a jet. She wrote a previous book called Choosing the Right Stuff on choosing and training astronauts. As it turns, out, of course, her being a psychiatrist ended up being helpful to the families present at the launch and explosion.
Was just thinking about the Sanity Squad not long ago. Thanks for the update 😀
Neo:
As you well know, I regard psychiatrists as MDs in name only.
They today are mostly pill-pushers, but previously they were disciples of Freud, a cocaine addict who made up the most monstrous case reports. Their DSM is a political instrument, not a medical one. Not so long ago the earlier edition classed homosexuality as a mental disorder, but not now. Voila!
My brother is a psychiatrist. He couldn’t cut it in actual medicine, so he became a shrink. We don’t talk. He’s an atheist and a Leftist, as so many of them are.
Psychiatrists have the highest suicide rate of any medical specialty.
I do not hold them, or most “therapists”, as little more than
bullshitters. This began while I was a medical student, where on my rotation to the psych ward I found an in-patient who had been there for a week crying about agonizing pain and was paraplegic. Diagnosis? Why, Freud’s “hysterical conversion reaction” and its “secondary gain”. Turns out someone finally repeated her spine x-rays and Lo! T12 vertebra was totally destroyed by a metastasis. Her spinal cord was destroyed at that level. Lots of MD shrinks saw her that tortuous week. None examined her breasts, one holding a large cancer.
You can have them; I don’t want them.
Cicero:
You wrote “Is it possible she was a real doctor then, and went into psychiatric training after the disaster?” My point is that of course she was a “real doctor” in that she had regular medical training just like any MD.
Your generalizations are just that, generalizations. The don’t apply to Pat, who is a rigorous doctor and a very rigorous psychiatrist and an extremely no-nonsense person – and that last bit is something anyone who reads her blog could easily see.
Nor am I a big fan of psychiatrists as a rule or in any kneejerk way, so you can just keep your “You can have them” business. However, I judge people as individuals, and there are plenty of knowledgeable psychiatrists doing good work. You are welcome to generalize all you want about huge groups of people and every single person in that group, but it certainly doesn’t enhance your arguments or your points.
“He’s an atheist and a Leftist, as so many of them are.”
Perhaps; but if such is the case WRT the estimable Dr. Santy—“now [a] lay Dominican in a healing prayer ministry”—then she’s either made a ghastly mistake and/or is seriously in need of therapy or has a rather mischievous sense of humor….
(Of course she could always be one of those complex, curious homo sapiens types…)
I have fond memories of “Dr. Sanity” from the early part of this century.
Great reading memories. I remember Dr. Sanity, as well as Shrinkwrapped and the wonderful Steven Den Beste.
If neo provided upvotes your comment would get one from me, Barry.
I LOVED Dr. Sanity. Her posts on the insanity that is the Left were some of the most insightful and enlightening of the post-9/11 era. The delusions, denial, projections boggled the my reality-based life. I was crushed when she stopped blogging – my impression that the worsening disconnect with reality under Obama ground her down and she couldn’t take it any more.
I look forward to reading her new book.