Hot topics in psychiatry

[De Niro]

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Hi there everybody,

I am looking for some really interesting & debatable topics in psychiatry, anything from 2006 onwards

Currently I have Cannabis & Schizophrenia in mind for my presentation

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

 

[whopper]

Medication of children for ADHD & other psychiatric illnesses.

Psychiatric commitment, one specific hot topic in this area is the use of involuntary outpatient commitment.

Pharmaceutical company advertising.

Subjectivity of diagnosis in psychiatric disorders

Cults

Scientiology's war against psychiatry

Upcoming advances in the field

Should managed care pay psychiatrists for psychotherapy?

Use of cannabis to treat psychiatric disorders

 

[Chrismander]

Use of cannabis to treat psychiatric disorders

whoa, slow down there Dr. Thompson. Is this for real, or a fringe movement?

I can't count the number of times I've heard patients (esp. Axis II'ers) tell me that they smoke marijuana to "help their symptoms", but isn't that just their drug dependence talking?

Arggh, can you imagine how ****ty psychiatry practice would become if cannabis actually became a legitimate psych treatment for something, no matter how narrow the indications? Imagine all the benzo-bargaining your patients do with you now, multiplied by 1000.... Teenagers would be begging their parents to take them to a shrink...

 

[PeeWee137]

one of the researchers i work just returned from an epilepsy conference. she told me that marijuana can slow the discharge of the neurons somehow to stop/slow/prevent seizures. (sorry im fuzzy on the details) and she also told me that marijuana wasnt as carcinogenic as the war-on-drugs people would like you to believe.

i dunno i think marijuana has a benefit in alot of conditions, not just psychiatry. or maybe thats the old hippie in me talking 😎

 

[whopper]

NJPA-The New Jersey Psychiatric Association voted about 2 months ago to suggest to the state gov to allow the use of medical marijuana to treat psychiatric disorders.

I don't claim to be an expert in that area, nor would I condone it without thoroughly researching the topic more. However it was an issue at a meeting nonetheless, and it is something that stirs debate.

 

[HyperSpace]

Why is it that medical marijuana is smoked? That to me makes no sense. Why not isolate the chemicals that are beneficial and make it in a tablet form so as to have better control over consumption. I think if pharmacologist were to do that there would be less debate as to the use of medical marijuana if it is indeed beneficial to the patient.

 

[whopper]

Smoking it, eating it, swallowing it in a pill, they can all get you high. Though yes, smoking it has several reasons as to why it'd not be the preferred delivery method.

It causes lung cancer, & increases the likelihood it'd be used for abuse because the "high" is experienced quicker.

Again, I'm not advocating its use, just that its a good topic for debate.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Smoking it, eating it, swallowing it in a pill, they can all get you high. Though yes, smoking it has several reasons as to why it'd not be the preferred delivery method.

It causes lung cancer, & increases the likelihood it'd be used for abuse because the "high" is experienced quicker.

Again, I'm not advocating its use, just that its a good topic for debate.

The pill does exist.
Funny though, nobody seems to ask me for a Marinol prescription.
🙄

 

[whopper]

Was taking a walk with the wife a few months ago and I kid you not....

I found a Marinol pen on the ground.

I guess it would've been funnier had I been in college and showed it to the fellow fraternity brothers, but now I'm a responsible doctor so ahem, it wasn't as funny.

I could just imagine the pharmaceutical dinner where they might have given these out.

 

[De Niro]

Thank you everybody

I am preparing: Cannabis as a contributory cause of psychosis. I've got the paper from the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, it dates back to August 2006.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Thank you everybody

I am preparing: Cannabis as a contributory cause of psychosis. I've got the paper from the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, it dates back to August 2006.

There was a more recent metaanalysis in the British Journal, I believe.

 

[toby jones]

sociopathy (moral / legal deviance or mental disorder?)

addiction (ditto)

 

[toby jones]

Part of the problem is in figuring our whether cannibus use tends to cause psychosis or whether there might be a common cause for both. One idea is that people use cannibus in an attempt to self-medicate their psychotic sympltoms rather than their cannibus being the cause of their psychotic symptoms.

How would you figure this out?

Don't expect you will get ethical approval for a randomised double blind control trial anytime soon. I mean... Cannibus isn't going to make anybody billions off patient is it??? ;-)