Psychiatry

What does it mean to be a competent psychiatrist?

Physician
January 13, 2015

What defines a competent psychiatrist?  To staunch critics of the field, perhaps nothing.  Some believe psychiatry has done far more harm than good, or has never helped anyone, rendering moot the question of competency.  What defines a competent buffoon?  A skillful brute?  An adroit half-wit?  Having just finished Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, a reader might easily conclude that psychiatric competency is …

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A child psychiatrist: Whether I choose to be one or not

Physician
December 14, 2014

Dr. Kenneth Azar, a mentor of mine at the old Georgia Regional Psychiatric Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, told me something once that has always stuck with me.

He told me that in the early years of his practice, when he was living and working out in Idaho, that he was one of a very small handful of psychiatrists who served the whole state. If an adult with psychosis needed to be …

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Physician suicide 101: Secrets, lies and solutions

Physician
November 13, 2014

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This article adapted from a lecture presented by Pamela Wible, MD, at the 2014 American Academy of Family Physicians Scientific Assembly in Washington DC.

Why did you go to medical school?

I’m a family physician born into a family of physicians. My parents warned me not to pursue medicine. So I went to medical school. Ten years later, I’m unhappy with the direction …

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Primary care physicians: 7 tips to treat health anxiety

Conditions
October 28, 2014

Before the Internet age, people with excessive and irrational worries about their health (we called them “hypochondriacs”) went to their doctors for reassurance. Today these patients still schedule appointment — often with exasperating frequency — with their primary care physicians when they’re concerned about an unusual lump or vague symptom. But most likely they’ll have first consulted WebMD or the Mayo Clinic website and come up with a differential diagnosis of their …

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Should we use antipsychotics to treat ADHD?

Conditions
October 19, 2014

Polypharmacy, or use of multiple psychiatric drugs, for treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is on the rise. A recent study compared treatment with basic therapy (stimulants plus parent training) with augmented therapy (those two plus risperidone, an atypical antipsychotic). The study concluded that treatment with risperidone was superior.

When children show dramatic improvements in behavior on risperidone, now being prescribed with increasing frequency for ADHD and a range …

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Psychiatric hospitals need meaningful use incentives

Tech
May 22, 2014

Imagine you go to work one day and your boss says all employees will be evaluated based on the performance of a new set of job skills that require additional training and, perhaps, new computer hardware and software. The boss also announces that some employees will be reimbursed for the cost of acquiring these skills and tools. You aren’t among this privileged group.

In government, this is called an unfunded …

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Sluggish cognitive tempo is a dangerous diagnostic idea

Conditions
April 23, 2014

Sluggish cognitive tempo may possibly be the very dumbest and most dangerous diagnostic idea I have ever encountered.

And I have seen some beauts during my forty years of shooting down crazy new diagnostic dream lists. The wild suggestions are usually created by “experts” brim full with diagnostic exuberance — sometimes well meaning, sometimes influenced by extensive drug company affiliations — and always ungoverned by simple common sense, a respect for …

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The choice between supportive and insight psychotherapy

Conditions
April 5, 2014

For more than a decade I’ve taught a seminar in dynamic psychotherapy to psychiatry residents. One tricky issue that arises every year is the apparent choice between conducting a “supportive” psychotherapy, versus an “analytic” or “insight-oriented” one. I developed a sailing analogy to clarify this issue, and to teach an important point about it.

Most patients appreciate emotionally comforting support. Many seek a therapist who will provide a listening ear, who …

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Weighing a patient offers a treasure trove of information

Physician
March 21, 2014

As a psychiatrist, I was trained to begin the mental status examination and overall assessment of my patient as soon as I greeted them in the waiting room. Even now, three decades after finishing medical school, I follow almost the same sequence of actions in my day-to-day interactions with my patients that I did as a resident in training. Granted, there are now electronic medical records and I rarely come …

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Why doctors commit suicide

Conditions
February 18, 2014

PAMELA-WIBLE

I’ve been a doctor for twenty years. I’ve not lost a single patient to suicide.

I’ve lost only colleagues, friends, lovers — all male physicians — to suicide.

Why?

Here’s what I know:

A physician’s greatest joy is the patient relationship.

Assembly-line medicine undermines the patient-physician relationship.

Most doctors are burned out, overworked, or exhausted.

Many doctors spend little time with their families.

Workaholics are admired in medicine.

Medicine values …

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When patients abuse emergency department workers

Conditions
February 16, 2014

There are few professional careers centered around protecting and caring for others that garner so much verbal and physical abuse than a career in emergency medicine.  Mental health workers, police, fire, and EMS personnel are the other fields that come to mind when I think of a service that “helps” people yet gets abuse dished upon them on nearly a daily basis.

A 2006 survey of emergency nurses showed that 25% …

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Why psychiatrists don’t take insurance

Physician
January 25, 2014

In 2007, I wrote a post called “Why Shrinks Don’t Take Insurance.”  The post is a bit dated, the CPT codes have changed since then, and the reasons to not take insurance have increased.  Many other doctors don’t take insurance now, though psychiatry remains the number one specialty where doctors don’t participate in health insurance plans.  This is an updated version of that same post.

Many psychiatrists in private practice don’t …

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The stigma of becoming a psychiatrist

Physician
January 11, 2014

I’m coming out, but it isn’t what you’re thinking.  I’m writing this to finish answering a question that I was asked 25 years ago by an attending physician.  He was a Scotsman with a ruddy complexion and it was early in my third year of medical school.  I had been up since 4am rounding on patients and then assisting on a general surgery case.

Answering the esoteric questions the Scotsman posed had …

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Holding children back a grade and ADHD: A problem or solution?

Conditions
January 3, 2014

I’ve been skeptical of the trend of “holding back” children with late birthdays. These are kids, usually born in the summer, who are just a few months short of the next grade cut-off. Some parents wonder whether it would be wise to hold them back a few months, so they end up one of the oldest (rather than youngest) kids in their class. This might seem to confer an advantage …

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How to know whether antidepressants will help

Meds
November 18, 2013

It seems to be trendy these days to say we’re all overmedicated. People say we  swallow a pill to try to escape any fleeting negative feeling, or that we throw them at our kids for any bad behavior. To be honest, there are times I agree.

However, sometimes people take the anti-medication thing way, way too far. They say antidepressants are a conspiracy of the drug companies to make us all …

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Why solutions to mental health continue to evade us

Physician
October 1, 2013

Another tragedy, another tragic series of errors, another avalanche of debriefings and politicization, and in Washington, DC, there are 12 more dead.  What can we say about this?  It seems that the standard commentary fails.  Aaron Alexis was not an angry white man, nor a conservative.  He carried no assault rifle and he had a secret security clearance. He doesn’t seem to have been motivated by race.  He was a …

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7 tips to stay away from misery on vacation

Physician
September 7, 2013

This year my wife and I decided to compile a list of all of the holidays we’ve had since we had kids. Its a nice list and we’re lucky to have traveled as well as we have.

I always get excited about going. There’s the anticipation of downtime away from work (and other peoples’ problems), time for relaxation, sleeping, eating, reading, and some quality time with my family. Life is just …

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Hospitalizing people against their will: 4 questions to ask

Conditions
September 4, 2013

Involuntary commitment refers to hospitalizing people against their will for psychiatric reasons. It is a controversial topic because this is where medicine and civil liberties intersect: Physicians have the ability to take away the rights of fellow citizens. (I suspect that few people who become psychiatrists realize that making recommendations about involuntary commitment is part of the job. I certainly did not know this. I also did not appreciate the …

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A ruptured eardrum turns out to be something much more

Physician
July 9, 2013

My shift is over, and I’m ready to head out the emergency department door.  When I walked in 12 hours ago, the department had 20 waiting patients.  I look up at the monitor and after 12 hours of trying to wrestle the department under control, not only is it not under control, now we’re 25 patients deep in the weeds.  My partner Dr. Jim looks at me and says, “Get …

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