Is this appropriate?

[Panda_Doc]

Wanted to get some opinions on the following situation:

My parents have been wanting me to talk to a professional for some time, but I haven't felt like I need to or that it would really help me. So about a month ago, they decided to go see a psychiatrist by themselves and talked to him about me. After talking to him for about an hour, the psychiatrist apparently told them that I have bipolar disorder and should come in to see him and that he could help me. They didn't tell me any of this and instead told me that they had found a very good doctor and would really like for me to go in and just try it out, so I finally agreed. I went in for two one-hour sessions and he asked me about my life, school, relationships, stress, etc. Never once did he bring up bipolar disorder or anything related to me. As the second session was winding down, I expected him to want to schedule another, but instead he was just kind of like "ok bye, good luck and let me know if you need anything...", so I assumed this meant he thought we were done and there was nothing really serious for us to talk about. When I went home and told my parents about this, they were surprised and that's when they finally brought up his "diagnosis" of me. Now they are convinced that I have bipolar and should go back and need to get medicated.

Am I overreacting, or was it inappropriate of this doctor to come up with such a serious diagnosis about me without ever meeting me, just based on a one-hour conversation with my parents? And if he really did think I'm bipolar, shouldn't he have eventually brought this up to me or asked me to schedule another session to gather more info? I'm not planning to go back to see him again, but as a med student who has an interest in psych, I am just curious about your thoughts on this.

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[shan564]

We have a strict rule on this forum to not give medical/psychiatric advice, since these situations are usually more complicated than what can be surmised from a brief forum post.

That said... most of the time, when a patient or family tells me that "a doctor told me xyz" and xyz sounds inappropriate/incorrect, it's usually because the patient/family is mistaken (i.e. rather than saying that "your son/daughter has bipolar disorder," the psychiatrist might have said "based on what you're describing, I'd be concerned about bipolar disorder, so maybe your son/daughter should see a psychiatrist").

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Not medical advice/treatment--but comment on doctors' behavior: One often gets requests from a parent of a young adult or teen to "do something". The appropriate response, if so inclined, is to do a careful evaluation of the identified patient, and share with that person the diagnostic impression and treatment plan. It seems as though the first portion of that process was done, the second incompletely--you are left without a clear outcome from your two hour evaluation, your parents are left with some indirect impression from prior to that. If you want more answers, you should follow up with the treating physician directly.

 

[clusterF]

I didn't read the whole thing very carefully but it sounds like a bad episode of 3's company.

 

[vistaril]

Wanted to get some opinions on the following situation:

My parents have been wanting me to talk to a professional for some time, but I haven't felt like I need to or that it would really help me. So about a month ago, they decided to go see a psychiatrist by themselves and talked to him about me. After talking to him for about an hour, the psychiatrist apparently told them that I have bipolar disorder and should come in to see him and that he could help me. They didn't tell me any of this and instead told me that they had found a very good doctor and would really like for me to go in and just try it out, so I finally agreed. I went in for two one-hour sessions and he asked me about my life, school, relationships, stress, etc. Never once did he bring up bipolar disorder or anything related to me. As the second session was winding down, I expected him to want to schedule another, but instead he was just kind of like "ok bye, good luck and let me know if you need anything...", so I assumed this meant he thought we were done and there was nothing really serious for us to talk about. When I went home and told my parents about this, they were surprised and that's when they finally brought up his "diagnosis" of me. Now they are convinced that I have bipolar and should go back and need to get medicated.

Am I overreacting, or was it inappropriate of this doctor to come up with such a serious diagnosis about me without ever meeting me, just based on a one-hour conversation with my parents? And if he really did think I'm bipolar, shouldn't he have eventually brought this up to me or asked me to schedule another session to gather more info? I'm not planning to go back to see him again, but as a med student who has an interest in psych, I am just curious about your thoughts on this.

there appears to be very little agreement within the psychiatry community(in terms of actual community practitioners) on what is and what isn't bipolar d/o.

I'll just leave my comments at that....