Help!!!

[kittykoe3]

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😱 😱 😱

Hello,
I am an MS III with an interest in Psychiatry and just received a warning from two psychiatrists with whom I'm rotating that psychologists will "inevitably" gain prescribing privileges everywhere.

I am not intending to start a debate😛, but am seeking reliable information on the likelihood of this new trend spreading far beyond NM & LA?

Thanks 👍

 

[OldPsychDoc]

😱 😱 😱

Hello,
I am an MS III with an interest in Psychiatry and just received a warning from two psychiatrists with whom I'm rotating that psychologists will "inevitably" gain prescribing privileges everywhere.

I am not intending to start a debate😛, but am seeking reliable information on the likelihood of this new trend spreading far beyond NM & LA?

Thanks 👍

Don't worry. They're just part of our secret medical education cabal to scare away those not truly committed to the field. That way you can decide to enter FP, IM, or Peds, where your job has already been inevitably replaced by a midlevel prescriber.

Interesting choice of topic for a first post from someone "not intending to start a debate". Who said there was a "debate"?🙄

 

[jjbmsiv]

Jesus, he must think we're just a bunch of dumb shrinks or something.

Lock the thread?

 

[kittykoe3]

Jesus, he must think we're just a bunch of dumb shrinks or something.

Lock the thread?

I am shocked at your hostility...

I'm simply hoping to learn more about a trend which may influence the field. If this is an inappropriate venue to discuss such things, then I apologize.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I am shocked at your hostility...

I'm simply hoping to learn more about a trend which may influence the field. If this is an inappropriate venue to discuss such things, then I apologize.

Psychologist prescribing has been done to death in this forum, sometimes by people with good intentions, and a times by those who really just love to stir up controversy. Some people, (your psychiatrist friends, apparently, for example) see it as a sign of the approaching apocalypse. Others point to the large numbers of other "midlevels" (PAs, NPs, etc.) already prescribing in psychiatry and other specialties, and figure that everything will work itself out just fine, thank you.

In any case, I think it might be reasonably viewed as rather impolite to stride into a room, unannounced and unintroduced, and attempt to begin a conversation on a controversial topic--rather like standing up on a cafeteria table and yelling, "Hey everyone, I'm new here and I hear that gays should be allowed to get married. I'm not trying to start a fight, but what do you all think about that?" It is more customary when beginning to socialize with strangers to listen to conversations for awhile, and perhaps talk about the weather, "American Idol", or the MLB playoffs first. So anyway, pardon us for being shocked that you are "shocked by our hostility". Take some time to read some of the topics that have gone before, and you'll discover that most of us are not hostile people at all.

 

[golfpropsychguy]

[

 

[luft]

You've probably noticed you have stirred up some strong reactions. Don't let it get to you too much as there has been some drama around here with the topic. These people really are nice and would like to help you out with your questions, you just happened to stumble onto a bad one. Don't let us give you a bad impression and scare you away from psychiatry either. It is by far the best field you can go into! (IMHO)

 

[jjbmsiv]

Actually, given the low post count and peculiar style of the original post, I'm thinking OPD and myself believe this poster to be an imposter, neé particular former psych pot-stirrer, and hence these specific reactions.

 

[luft]

I see. The ongoing saga.

 

[PsychMD2100]

There's a limitless amount of work to go around. Psychiatrists are in high demand nationwide and it's only going to increase. The midlevels do a lot of the work that we wouldn't want to anyway. You won't have a problem getting a job when you're done with training.

 

[kittykoe3]

I am neither an imposter nor troll, but now gather what a sensitive and oft-rehashed subject I've brought up.

I do very much appreciate the sincere responses thus far. Thank you 🙂

 

[toby jones]

> Actually, given the low post count and peculiar style of the original post, I'm thinking OPD and myself believe this poster to be an imposter, neé particular former psych pot-stirrer, and hence these specific reactions.


Fregoli delusion anyone??



(JK)

(I have read some of the controversy and I do understand the rationale for the concern. Its not like it hasn't happened before...)

 

[DrIng]

While I too am not meaning to be a troll an interesting thought just occurred to me. I've been wondering for a while how the US manages the shortfall in workforce for psychiatry (most countries manage this by importing trained psychiatrists from overseas and requiring them to sit the exams fo the country they want to be lisensed in (read poaching from the third wordl and lets leave the morality of that for another debate)). however, you can't practice as a psychiatrist in the US unless you've done a US residency (unlike just about every other country). So the solution for the US is really one of a few options:
1) Poach from Canada (who the US Board does recognise as providing equivalent training) and let their system then poach from the rest of the world. (So Canada will recognise that someone trained in Britain is equivalent to a Canadian trained psychaitrist and can work in Canada but the US wont. However you make more money in the US than Canada so a lot of Canadians go to work in the US leaving Canada with a shortfall that they meet by...)
2) Allow psychologists to prescribe and meet a certain degree of the need in community andin turn expands the workforce...
3) Accept that the demand for services is too great and there will alwasy be unmet need.
I'm not meaning to be critical of the US system but I wonder whether the Board thought about the implications when they started refusing to consider that training you got in another first world nation may in fact be comparable to the training you get in the US (I would have no problem with people having to sit exams to prove that they know as much as a US psychaitrist I just have problems with a policy that says that nobody else trained anywhere else can be competent and we wont even give them a chance to prove it.) And I wonder which is a greater threat o professional intergrity, bringing in doctors from overseas or allowing psychologists to prescribe because there is a massive unmet need.
Sorry, I know this is a little inflamatory.... But the lack of logic bugs me...

 

[golfpropsychguy]

[

 

[toby jones]

I have a another option:

Manage prevalence rates better. When the statistic is supposed to be something like 'one in four people have suffered from a mental disorder at some point in their life' then we must start to wonder just how broad the notion of 'mental disorder' has become...

A notion that used to apply to severe cases of psychosis and elevated or lowered mood has come to apply to more mundane cases of 'unhappiness' or 'shyness'.

But what the hey, on with the medicalisation (and medication) of normality - ho!

;-)