Would there be a conflict of interest in some of these activities though? I thought that psychiatrists were supposed to reveal very little about themselves to their patients. If you start running for office or appearing on tv or writing books under your real name, then inevitably, aspects of your personal life will become public, and patients will know about it. Especially if you run for local office, patients will know your views on local issues that might be affecting their lives.
What do people think about this?
I'm a bit bemused to hear these questions from one who uses as a handle the name of the tough, outspoken Nancy Sinatra, who sang anti-war songs during the Vietnam era, is a Playboy Bunny, speaks out for gay civil rights and literacy. But these are still very good questions!
Though it is true that in the office or at the hospital the focus should always be on the patient, and as physicians we must be careful to avoid conflicts of interest, there is nothing wrong with taking our place in society as good citizens.
If we don't advocate for our patients, who will? It is our duty.
As to how our patients view public actions, they are as free as anyone else to agree or disagree with us, in the same civil manner we do, without infringing on the rights of others or bringing physical harm. They are free to ask for a different physician if they perceive that they will be better served by someone else.
I agree, it is not our duty to seek fame and fortune at the expense of others -
confidentiality and trust should always be safeguarded, as is the rule for
all relationships, and particularly in our relationships with our patients.
And while the focus of treatment is always on the patient, that does not mean we can be robot-like professionals who reveal nothing to our patients. To establish a relationship with the patient requires some small level of self-revelation, even if that is only in our emotional response to the patient that is often all too apparent and sometimes involuntary. No one wants to talk to a robot when they are feeling bad, anyway. The other day the only way I could get a 12 year old PTSD patient to speak at all was to talk about music. Turns out we are both rock and roll fans.
It is true that when one takes the public stage he or she gives up some privacy. That is part of the price of being a public figure, even on the level of being a practicing community-based physician. It is up to the individual to note this, and determine how his private life will appear under the gaze of the public eye, and how that might affect the doctor-patient relationship, and if the benefits outweight the risks of going more public with personal views.
No public figure will ever make everybody happy, and we'll never make every patient happy, though we try our best. If making everybody happy were a requirement to being a psychiatrist, then none of us would have a job for long.
