Psychiatrist

T he relationships between psychiatrists and the people who seek our help are necessarily one-sided. While we know many of the intimate details of our patients' lives, they typically know about us only what we choose to tell them - usually very little. In the absence of personal information, people make assumptions about what their doctors' lives are like. Seeking reassurance that the person treating them has some special expertise in the universal struggle to live a controlled and happy life, it is common for patients to assume that their psychiatrist is not plagued by the same difficulties that they are. These assumptions are frequently inaccurate.

Dr. Michael Victor Edelstein, whose career at Sheppard Pratt Health System spanned nearly 30 years and whose hobbies were auto repair and listening to gospel music, died of a heart attack Monday at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Cockeysville resident was 66. Dr. Edelstein was on his way to work Monday morning when he was stricken. He was taken by medics to St. Joseph Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. "I've know Michael since I came to Sheppard Pratt in 1986, and he was one of the most remarkable doctors I've ever worked with," said Dr. Steve Sharfstein, Sheppard Pratt Health System president.

The Towson psychiatrist whose license was suspended early this month after he was accused of improper conduct with boys he was treating faced the state board that oversees doctors Wednesday in a hearing. The closed-door hearing was a chance for Miguel Frontera to provide information to the Maryland Board of Physicians, which will decide whether to permanently revoke or reinstate his license. Frontera arrived with his lawyer, Natalie Magdeburger, who declined to comment. The outcome of the hearing was unclear, though Frontera has the right to request another hearing.

Dr. Alejandro Rodriguez, former director of the division of child psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who also conducted pivotal studies on autism and other developmental disorders in children, died Friday of heart failure at his Palm City, Fla., home. The longtime Ruxton resident was 93. "He was my teacher many, many, many years ago at Hopkins. His teaching was patient-oriented and fundamentally bedside. He'd say, 'Let's go to the bedside and see the patient,'" said Dr. J. Raymond DePaulo Jr., who is director of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Hopkins School of Medicine.

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CHILDREN. Robert Coles. Houghton Mifflin. 358 pages. $22.95. Robert Coles, professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard, is renowned for his sensitive and compelling studies of children, as well as for his wide-ranging essays, memoirs, biographies and literary studies. In the five volumes of "Children of Crisis" and in "The Moral Life of Children" and "The Political Life of Children," he elicited children's beliefs and examined them, and in so doing also examined adult ways of perceiving and understanding childhood.

Dr. John M. Hamilton, a Columbia psychiatrist who admitted to having a sexual affair with a female patient, has resigned his position as deputy medical director of the American Psychiatric Association.His resignation yesterday came two days after a state disciplinary panel placed him on probation for five years and forbade him from treating patients for at least a year. The state Board of Physician Quality Assurance called his conduct "unethical" and a violation of state law.Under a consent decree with the state board, the psychiatrist waived his right to a hearing and admitted to having the affair.

A Columbia psychiatrist was negligent in the treatment of a patient who later committed suicide, according to a suit filed in Howard County Circuit Court by the psychiatrist who last treated the patient.Dr. Lawrence W. Adler, formerly a psychiatrist at Spring Grove Hospital Center in Catonsville, charges that Columbia psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Robert Hyman failed to provide him with the psychiatric recordsof James Pescetto. Pescetto committed suicide on April 20, 1988. Thesuit did not identify where Pescetto lived.

Services for Dr. Dennis Tyson Jones, a Baltimore psychiatrist and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Mount View Cemetery in West Friendship, Howard County.Dr. Jones, who practiced psychiatry in Baltimore for 30 years and served as a consultant to hospitals, businesses and government agencies, died of cancer Friday at his Ruxton home. He was 62.Born in Wilson, N.C., he graduated from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem in 1950.

Dr. William M. Goldstein, a psychiatrist who taught and wrote about his field, died of cancer yesterday at his Rockville home. He was 63. Born in Baltimore and raised in the Howard Park neighborhood, he was a 1960 graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in Ohio. He was a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Goldstein, who practiced in Chevy Chase for many years, joined the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1975 and taught its psychiatric residents the principles of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

Dr. Kay Robinson Cutler, a World War II veteran and a psychiatrist, died of undetermined causes Thursday at his home in Phoenix, Baltimore County. He was 84 and had suffered a stroke four years ago. Born in Idaho, he spent his childhood in Salt Lake City before joining the Army Air Forces in 1942. He served as a pilot in World War II and spent nine months as a prisoner of war in Germany, according to his son Kimball Cutler of Freeville, N.Y. Mr. Cutler married Wyona Barney in 1947, and in 1950 he received a medical degree from the University of Utah.

Dr. James Patrick Connaughton, a psychiatrist who was the founder and first director of what became the Johns Hopkins Children and Adolescent Mental Health Center, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at his Cloisters home in the Woodbrook neighborhood of Baltimore County. He was 80. The son of a government worker and a shopkeeper, Dr. Connaughton was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. After graduating from Rockwell College, a Tipperary boarding school, he entered University College in Dublin, where he earned his medical degree in 1956.

Dr. Betty W. Robinson, a psychiatrist who had been director of inpatient services at the Walter P. Carter Center in downtown Baltimore and an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, died June 19 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The longtime Stoneleigh resident was 84. The daughter of a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad office worker and a bookkeeper, Betty Lee Wilmas was born and raised in St. Louis, where she graduated in 1944 from Wills High School.

Dr. John "Jack" Mannen Arthur, the first mental health consultant to be appointed by the Baltimore County public schools, died Feb. 7 at his home in Roland Park. He was 94. He was born in Kansas City, Kan., in 1916 to Matilda Streuning and John Mannen Arthur Jr., an executive at Kansas City Power and Light. Dr. Arthur studied at the University of Kansas, Lawrence and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, from which he graduated in 1943. Annette Arthur, Dr. Arthur's second wife, said he began his career in psychiatry after his father was saved from a nervous breakdown by a psychiatrist.

Dr. James Jaquet Gibbs, a retired Sheppard Pratt psychiatrist who founded its children's and adolescents' program, died of a stroke Sunday at Franklin Square Hospital Center. He was 86 and lived in Oakcrest Village in Parkville. Born and raised in Naperville, Ill., he was a graduate of Naperville High School. During World War II, he was assigned by the Army to take courses at Texas Agriculture and Mining University, Stanford University and Grinnell College. He earned a medical degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.

A BALTIMORE psychiatrist who composes electronic music on the side can sip coffee some mornings and hear his pieces played on National Public Radio's news program "Morning Edition."Andrew Brent Rudo, who practices medicine in Woodlawn, and NPR just signed a contract for the network's use of six minute-long pieces of jazz and big-band styles and another 20 shorter "musical bleebles, buttons and stingers." That's radio talk for filler, introductions and background. Hints of rock and country also sneak into Rudo's stuff.

The woman accusing real estate broker Gary Hart of rape was so overwhelmed by the thought of breaking up with a former Washington Redskins player that she became abusive and suicidal, an Annapolis psychiatrist testified yesterday.Dr. Richard Templeton said the football player, James W. Steffan, was trying to slow down the relationship he had with the woman three years ago, but she was unable to cope."(Steffan) led me to believe that they had a very intense relationship and he was feeling powerless and overwhelmed in how to deal with it," Templeton said.