Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
Has your opinion on "Psychiatry" changed because news
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 30410" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>I've already seen some appalling examples of medical 'practice' (and who knows, if they keep practising, maybe one day they'll get the hang of it?). That is why when I saw that story, one thought I had was that the other children in that family need to be independently assessed to see if that psychiatrist misdiagnosed any/all of them - if there was poor medication supervision, then could there be poor medical treatment/assessment in other areas?</p><p></p><p>However, I HAVE seen it before. I used to counsel people with certain auto-immune disorders and we had a list of doctors who were supportive, as well as a 'fink list'. We never publicised the fink list but if a patient mentioned they were seeing a doctor whose name WE knew was on that list, we might gently suggest they get another opinion.</p><p></p><p>We also had, on rare occasions, doctors who were high on our list of supportive, useful doctors who we quickly switched to the 'fink' list when it became clear that they were taking all referrals from us and giving all patients the same diagnosis, without properly assessing them. One such doctor had a 'revolving door' diagnosis of hypoglycemia - EVERY patient we referred would call us back and say, "I know what is wrong with me now - Dr Y said I have hypoglycemia, he must be really good because he saw it straight away, as soon as I walked in the room. He gave me a little bottle of glycerine I have to sip every half hour and said I'll be fine eventually as long as I do absolutely everything he tells me, stop seeing my other specialists and only see him from now on."</p><p>We also found that Dr Y had begun charging much higher fees than standard and cutting his patients off from other contact, such as support groups. </p><p></p><p>I'm no longer involved in that organisation so I don't know what's happened to Dr Y - we have a fairly vigilant health care system, which hopefully has caught up with him to ask him some probing questions. But the damage people like this can do to vulnerable patients is appalling. Often something much nastier than hypoglycemia goes undiagnosed and unchecked for much longer than it should, as a result of this approach by a fink doctor.</p><p></p><p>mother in law is a retired nurse, practising from 40s to 70s. In her day, psychiatry was VERY hit and miss. What she saw of psychiatrists in hospitals was emotional butchery, compared to what it is today. When I got myself in to see a shrink for my PTSD I had to keep it secret because my in-laws were very scathing about psychiatrists. Since then our kids have, at times, had to see psychologists who were VERY good. mother in law has been unhappy about this but now we can talk more freely. She's explained her views and we've discussed them. I've pointed out that psychiatry has come a long way since her experiences and that her negative opinions were probably well justified; but they don't really apply these days.</p><p></p><p>But there are still shrinks around who haven't changed their practice, or kept up with their reading, since they began practising decades ago. THEY especially are the ones who continue to give that modality a very bad name.</p><p></p><p>I also was put under the care of a team of psychiatrists (along with a range of other specialists - it was a multidisciplinary centre) during several weeks of hospitalisation back in 1997, to try to reassess my disability and how it was being managed. The day I was admitted, we had just found out that both boys are autistic and their sister is borderline Asperger's. We were still coming to terms with that and trying to get things organised, while standing on the footpath outside the doctor's surgery, when my phone rang to tell me a bed had become available. So my state of mind was - turmoil, anger, all sorts of emotions as I was trying to come to terms with this while knowing husband was struggling with the kids at home. The team of shrinks asked me a lot of questions while I was wanting to get it over with so I could get on the phone and start organising therapy appointments and assessments for the boys. The shrinks diagnosed "dysthymia" which I disagreed with. They wanted to medicate me and I flatly refused. My next visitor was a psychologist who knew me personally from my counselling work, who immediately agreed with me that I wasn't suffering from dysthymia, I was just upset about my kids and still coming to terms with it. She remained a regular visitor but the psychiatrists, who were supposed to be continuing supervision and management via counselling, never visited again. They apparently lost interest in me because I disagreed with them.</p><p>I still believe they were wrong, but I can of course see why they came to that conclusion at the time - I was still dealing emotionally with my kids' diagnoses. But this is normal! Their assessment system didn't seem geared to take into account this sort of short-term issue, they only considered the patient as typical of their normal presentation and as a snapshot of something in stasis.</p><p></p><p>What I'm trying to say here - psychiatry is much more exact than it used to be, but practitioners need to be aware that it still is a blunt instrument. Doctors also need to be aware of the pedestal on which a lot of patients place them. When a doctor says that something is acceptable, too many patients take this at face value and don't question it. Similarly, too many doctors don't check things as carefully as they should.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 30410, member: 1991"] I've already seen some appalling examples of medical 'practice' (and who knows, if they keep practising, maybe one day they'll get the hang of it?). That is why when I saw that story, one thought I had was that the other children in that family need to be independently assessed to see if that psychiatrist misdiagnosed any/all of them - if there was poor medication supervision, then could there be poor medical treatment/assessment in other areas? However, I HAVE seen it before. I used to counsel people with certain auto-immune disorders and we had a list of doctors who were supportive, as well as a 'fink list'. We never publicised the fink list but if a patient mentioned they were seeing a doctor whose name WE knew was on that list, we might gently suggest they get another opinion. We also had, on rare occasions, doctors who were high on our list of supportive, useful doctors who we quickly switched to the 'fink' list when it became clear that they were taking all referrals from us and giving all patients the same diagnosis, without properly assessing them. One such doctor had a 'revolving door' diagnosis of hypoglycemia - EVERY patient we referred would call us back and say, "I know what is wrong with me now - Dr Y said I have hypoglycemia, he must be really good because he saw it straight away, as soon as I walked in the room. He gave me a little bottle of glycerine I have to sip every half hour and said I'll be fine eventually as long as I do absolutely everything he tells me, stop seeing my other specialists and only see him from now on." We also found that Dr Y had begun charging much higher fees than standard and cutting his patients off from other contact, such as support groups. I'm no longer involved in that organisation so I don't know what's happened to Dr Y - we have a fairly vigilant health care system, which hopefully has caught up with him to ask him some probing questions. But the damage people like this can do to vulnerable patients is appalling. Often something much nastier than hypoglycemia goes undiagnosed and unchecked for much longer than it should, as a result of this approach by a fink doctor. mother in law is a retired nurse, practising from 40s to 70s. In her day, psychiatry was VERY hit and miss. What she saw of psychiatrists in hospitals was emotional butchery, compared to what it is today. When I got myself in to see a shrink for my PTSD I had to keep it secret because my in-laws were very scathing about psychiatrists. Since then our kids have, at times, had to see psychologists who were VERY good. mother in law has been unhappy about this but now we can talk more freely. She's explained her views and we've discussed them. I've pointed out that psychiatry has come a long way since her experiences and that her negative opinions were probably well justified; but they don't really apply these days. But there are still shrinks around who haven't changed their practice, or kept up with their reading, since they began practising decades ago. THEY especially are the ones who continue to give that modality a very bad name. I also was put under the care of a team of psychiatrists (along with a range of other specialists - it was a multidisciplinary centre) during several weeks of hospitalisation back in 1997, to try to reassess my disability and how it was being managed. The day I was admitted, we had just found out that both boys are autistic and their sister is borderline Asperger's. We were still coming to terms with that and trying to get things organised, while standing on the footpath outside the doctor's surgery, when my phone rang to tell me a bed had become available. So my state of mind was - turmoil, anger, all sorts of emotions as I was trying to come to terms with this while knowing husband was struggling with the kids at home. The team of shrinks asked me a lot of questions while I was wanting to get it over with so I could get on the phone and start organising therapy appointments and assessments for the boys. The shrinks diagnosed "dysthymia" which I disagreed with. They wanted to medicate me and I flatly refused. My next visitor was a psychologist who knew me personally from my counselling work, who immediately agreed with me that I wasn't suffering from dysthymia, I was just upset about my kids and still coming to terms with it. She remained a regular visitor but the psychiatrists, who were supposed to be continuing supervision and management via counselling, never visited again. They apparently lost interest in me because I disagreed with them. I still believe they were wrong, but I can of course see why they came to that conclusion at the time - I was still dealing emotionally with my kids' diagnoses. But this is normal! Their assessment system didn't seem geared to take into account this sort of short-term issue, they only considered the patient as typical of their normal presentation and as a snapshot of something in stasis. What I'm trying to say here - psychiatry is much more exact than it used to be, but practitioners need to be aware that it still is a blunt instrument. Doctors also need to be aware of the pedestal on which a lot of patients place them. When a doctor says that something is acceptable, too many patients take this at face value and don't question it. Similarly, too many doctors don't check things as carefully as they should. Marg [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
Has your opinion on "Psychiatry" changed because news
Top