"She is in the process of getting her degree in Psychiatry."
There is no such thing. A psychiatrist is a person who must first finish medical school and then do an internship. Then a residency in Psychiatry. As I recall the residency is 2 yrs for adult psychiatry and 3 yrs for child. Then pass the various aspects of the state licensing, psychiatry boards, etc.. All of this is full time. If she's working she's not going to be a psychiatrist. As above, perhaps there some kind of training for being a psychiatry specialist within the advanced practice reg nurse system in your state.
But I do feel very strongly about psychiatrist vs psychiatric practicing nurse or whatever your state calls this. Yes, the nurse is much cheaper and maybe that's all the state will pay for. But the training is hardly the same. I've met some fabulous nurse practitioners and saw them for what I believed to be non-complex issues such as my child needed an antibiotic. I think they have a place in the medical system.
Personalities and "bedside manner" are individual. Presumably nurses are trained to be more caring and attentive than doctors are trained to be, isn't that what we hope a nurse is? Again, this is very personal, and I and my son have had some docs with no bedside manner. But I am more concerned about their knowledge than their bedside manner. For 20 minutes a month or whatever, they can be rude to me all they want. Actually a psychiatrist in the beginning might be once a month for 50 minutes but once there's medication stabilization .. well I'm once every 3 or 4 months for years now. I'd happily see a psychiatric nurse practitioner now because I'm stable on medications for some time now.
For my child I see psychiatry differently. Children, particularly teens, have changing hormones which mean changing medications. Growth means increase in dose some times. Changing symptoms (whether they actually changed or you just realized a behavior is a symptom) means the psychiatrist needs to think about changing diagnosis and changing medications. So personally, unless the person has passed early adulthood (the possibility arising of schizophrenia and the settling of hormone changes) I would have my child see a psychiatrist.
I'll add a couple of other points, a psychiatrist is trained in how the brain works, they are trained to know what tiny part of the brain does what, how the hormones, electical impulses, etc of the brain work. In fact, many also have additional training and/or certification in neurology. So they know which part or function of the brain triggers a particular symptom. Also, obviously, how a specific medication affects each of these things. And there are a lot of tiny differences that can indicate a particular medication, that's what thousands of medical studies a year point out. eg an anxiety patient with tinitus responds best to one particular medication.
Also, the psychiatrist spent years to learn how the entire body works. They know specifically what function of the liver is affected by each medication, eg Depakote. They know all the other possible things which could affect that function so they can go down a list of questions to determine if the combination of foods, alcohol, subs being abused, etc, etc and medications will cause the liver to have a problem. A nurse practitioner might know the same list but unlikely would be willing to override the list based on amt of food, amt of sub abuse, etc. Obviously I'm using examples here that I've run across, these would not be the only times I would be looking for a psychiatrist's knowledge. While I may object to it, I also understand that things like gender, race, ethnicity and such play into diagnosis and medications too. eg believe it or not I apparently have a very mild form of lupus most common the blue eyed blonds, which I happen to be. Is a nurse practicioner trained to know which type of lupus responds best to each medication, which new or recurring symptom might indicate a change in medications?
Again, this is only MHO based on what I have observed from docs I know, am a patient of, etc over the years. Yes, I'm very picky about docs and have the usual doctor prejudices against those who did not go to US medication schools, have had ethical problems, did not do the residency for the thing they are specialized in, etc. These are prejudices, nothing to do with reality any more than a specific psychiatrist is better for you than a specific nurse practitioner.
