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here.
Two comments blamed the mentally ill in general and called the shooter a “religious nut”. This equates
hatred with treatable illnesses and does untold harm to our most vulnerable patients. One comment
blamed both the Chinese government and “gentrification”. One comment noted that spas are misnamed,
and another referred to them as houses of prostitution, as though that would justify the murders. At
least one of the victims in Atlanta was a grandmother married 50 years. Even if some of them were in-
volved in sex work, so were the victims of Jack the Ripper.
Four comments suggested “Use your right to carry, ladies!”, guns, pepper spray, and martial arts training.
I’m a proponent of two of these, but they are not the answer. While these comments may have been in-
tended to be helpful, they did not have this effect: it’s unlikely any of the episodes could be prevented by
these means, and it minimizes the hurt experienced by the victims.
So what to do? I thank NCPS for holding this panel, inviting this article, and continuing this important
work. I thank everyone who attended our talk, and the honest and heartfelt conversations afterwards.
Our patients, our colleagues, our families and ourselves, all need our help and protection against violence
and discrimination. In the panel I quoted Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better.
Then when you know better, do better.” Thank you all for working on this together.

Congratulations to our 2022-2023 Council Members

President Resident Councilors
Farah Zaidi, MD

President-Elect California Pacific Medical Center
Diana Wertz, MD, PhD Positions currently vacant

Vice President Kaiser Permanente, Oakland
Takeo Toyoshima, MD Jimmy He, MD
Kathryn Brown, MD, MBA
Secretary
Emaya Anbalagan, MD Kaiser Permanente, San Jose
Tiffany Chao, MD
Treasurer Manesha Yelda, MD
Michael Ostacher, MD, MPH, MMSc
Stanford
APA Assembly Representative Catherine Shir, MD
Raymond Reyes, MD (19-23) Jasmine Tatum, MD
Peter Forster, MD, DLFAPA (20-24)
Mel Blaustein, MD, DFAPA (21-25) San Mateo County Psychiatric Residency Train-
Yelena Zalkina, MD (22-26) ing Program
Ashley Shatola, MD
Councilors-at-Large Kara Wang, MD
Janet Baek, MD (20-23)
Vacant (20-23) University of California, San Francisco
Elizabeth Rawson, MD, MHS (21-24) Connor Barnhart, MD
Vacant (21-24) Sean Amegadzie, MD

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA PSYCHIATRIC SOCIETY Page 14 MARCH/APRIL 2022