The Treatment The Treatment subseries contains a treatment, synopsis and notes, as well copies of the New Yorker covering from 25 May - 8 Jun 1981. The Treatment, (aka The Patient; aka 'Bad Medicine') is based on a four-part series of articles by Susan Sheehan in the 'Reporter At Large column. The article chronicles Maxine Mason's (known as Miss Sylvia Frumkin in the early articles) descent into schizophrenia and the medical system's failure to monitor her properly after her parents died. The New Yorker published a follow-up article by Sheehan after Mason's death in 1994 in their 'Postscript,' column. 1980s