A Psychiatrist refuses to be a drug pusher

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Health Forum: Out of the game

A frustrated psychiatrist abandons her practice to get out from under

'evaluating and medicating'

Tuesday, June 04, 2002

By B. son

They changed the game on me and I am quite angry about it. People often

ask me why a board-certified psychiatrist with specialty training in

child

and adolescent psychiatry has chosen not to practice.

(Ted Crow, Post-Gazette)

I have decided to shed light on this subject because I have finally found

the reason.

I have just finished reading another recruiting letter, looking for a

psychiatrist to provide medication management and evaluations for a

mental

health group in Anywhere, USA. In this day of managed mental healthcare,

the

role of the psychiatrist is to diagnose mental disorders and to

prescribe

medications [[[[[[[[FB: Managed care is not the reason, this is all

psychiatrists do: diagnose a dsm-iv " disease " (more often diseases)and rx.

one--more

often, several, drugs]]]]]]]]]] . When the patient is " stable, " the

psychiatrist will then see him at approximately three-month intervals for

15-minute

medication checks. My job is to pronounce the name of the disorder and to

write the prescription to fill it. I receive financial incentives to

" evaluate

and to medicate " as many patients as possible [[[[[[[again, this is all

psychiatrist do, it is given them by their own leadership, in collusion

with Big

Pharma. This is a naive psychiatrist, slow to wake up]]]]]]]]]]].

If psychotherapy is called for, then I must refer my patient to a

psychotherapist. Never mind that I have received excellent training in

psychotherapy. Never mind that my particular gift is in bringing a person

to wholeness

through the realm of the spoken word. I have even been able to point some

of

them toward a loving Creator who can bring meaning to their lives of

suffering.

Yes, I am angry because I am being used just for my knowledge of drug

metabolism, and the interactions of drugs on enzyme systems, yet no one

asks me

to expound on my understanding of how childhood pain can result in

untold

suffering in the world of adulthood [[[[[[[[[we see glimmerings of a

physician who cares beneath it all]]]]]]]]]].

When did the science of medicine supersede the art? [[[[[[[[what

science?

there is no science to biological psychiatry or to any of their " diseases. "

]]]]]]]]]When did therapy in a bottle replace the healing balm of

one-to-one interaction? I believe in the team approach to healing, yet I

have

discovered that my role on the treatment team is, " Just diagnose the

patient,

doctor, and recommend treatment. We'll take it from there. "

My heart still grieves for those whom society struggles to understand. I

still look with compassion on those who suffer from the ravages of mental

illness, yet I find that I must strive to ease their suffering in another

way. I

have not abandoned the principles of good psychiatric practice, but I've

chosen to pursue my passion for helping hurting people via other avenues.

When productivity is measured in terms of the people's lives that are

changed, and not just by the numbers of patients that are seen, I may

return to

the practice of psychiatry. [[[[[[[[[[[[[When will she awake to the fact

that

psychiatric drugs, and that psychiatric dx and rx do nothing but net harm.

She is thinking about this but has some way to go.]]]]]]]]]]]]]

____________________________________

B. son, M.D., of Brookville, Jefferson County, spends a lot of

her time educating and speaking publicly about problems involving mental

health issues and managed care.

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