Vergamini, Jerome: Quimby's Quandary

Quimby's Quandary: A Psychiatrist's Journey This is a story of a young psychiatrist just starting out in his training, progressing through military service, and evolving as he proceeds into a private practice and beyond. The story depicts his family life as well as his experiences with patients in his journey. Quimby starts out with some naivete but emerges as a quick-thinking and practical individual who grasps alternative routes to engage his patients. The story encompasses the fears and triumphs of the patients as well as their humanity, and that of Quimby and his family. This story extends over fifty years. To be able to show a reasonable depiction of that long span, the story is broken into vignettes separated by time, with the earlier more formative years getting more space in the story.

Jerome Vergamini M.D. is a retired psychiatrist who was raised in northern Wisconsin, went to small colleges in Minnesota, and got his medical degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1965. He finished a one-year rotating internship at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver and returned to University Hospitals in Madison for a three-year residency in psychiatry. In 1969, the Viet Nam war was continuing. Dr. Vergamini was called into the US Air Force and was assigned to a missile base in Montana. Two years later, when his service ended, he returned to northern Wisconsin to serve as medical director and administrator to a small mental health clinic. After two years an opportunity came up to return for more training as a child psychiatrist. After completing two more years of training, he accepted an opportunity to practice in Eugene, Oregon, where he lives and worked until his retirement in 2020, as the Coronavirus pandemic exploded. His practice over the years has included consultation to the courts and to numerous residential and outpatient treatment programs for children and adolescents. He has served on the board of the Oregon Psychiatric Association and served as president of that organization for one year. He was chief of psychiatry at Sacred Heart Hospital for a one-year term.Dr. Vergamini had been married to the same woman for 56 years, until her death in 2021. They have three grown children and two grandchildren. This is his second book. The first, A Fieldguide to the American Teenager, A Survival Guide for Parents, was published in 2016, with co-author Ray Miskimins Ph.D.