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Harry S. Abram, MD
Charlottesville. Va

JAMA. 1970;213(8):1344.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Your editorial "Open-Heart Surgery and the Psyche" (212:1370, 1970) is so dogmatic and final! Need there be a "victor?" I think the comments are oversimplistic and show a naivety of the mind-body problem which is frankly rather frightening. If you really read my work, as well as that of others (such as Kornfeld et al),¹ you will find no assertion that all the psychiatric complications following open-heart operations are "functional" in nature. For we are all aware there are a multiplicity of factors involved in the patient's response to cardiac operations. Indeed I mention Gilman's article² in my original paper,³ and in other writings note "multiple etiologies" involved in postoperative reactions. At a time when psychiatry is moving toward medicine and psychiatrists are collaborating with their medical and surgical colleagues to understand the complexity involved in patients' responses to physical illnesses and operative . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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