- Joined
- Mar 15, 2015
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This is in small part a vent but largely is a concern of mine which has troubled me for quite some time. Now I am an incoming intern and I am incredibly excited to go head first into my psychiatric training. One of the primary reasons I chose this specialty is due to my interest in developing good long term relationships with my patients and to help guide them through their mental health treatment as an expert in their care. However, one thing I continue to notice is the degree to which long term patients criticize our apparent lack of knowledge and skill to be able to do this for them.
I have read countless anecdotes of patients from online forums who suggest that they never receive satisfactory answers, feel “gaslighted” by their psychiatrist, are never warned of the potential side effects of treatment, and state that they feel like Guinea pigs more than patients and so on. Many of these patients also seem to think that their personal research has been more than sufficient and that they could handle their own psychopharmacologic care better than we do and seem to disregard the amount of training and study we undergo ourselves in order to do what we do.
I am just curious of the opinion of the practicing psychiatrists on this forum about this sort of phenomenon. If you experience such mistrust from patients, then how do you set the record straight? How can we do better to ensure that we can instill trust in our patients and work as a team toward their mental health goals?
I have read countless anecdotes of patients from online forums who suggest that they never receive satisfactory answers, feel “gaslighted” by their psychiatrist, are never warned of the potential side effects of treatment, and state that they feel like Guinea pigs more than patients and so on. Many of these patients also seem to think that their personal research has been more than sufficient and that they could handle their own psychopharmacologic care better than we do and seem to disregard the amount of training and study we undergo ourselves in order to do what we do.
I am just curious of the opinion of the practicing psychiatrists on this forum about this sort of phenomenon. If you experience such mistrust from patients, then how do you set the record straight? How can we do better to ensure that we can instill trust in our patients and work as a team toward their mental health goals?