Go Retire Psychiatrist

This is partly a reblog of my post in 2022, “Overdiagnosis of Psychiatric Disorders Still Happens” and partly a shout-out to my colleague and friend, Dr. George Dawson, MD on his recent post “The Politics of Deprescribing: Deconstructing the HHS Mental Health Agenda.”

I’m also looking back on another one of my posts with a similar title, “Looking Back on Gunslingers and Chess Masters.”

The longer my retirement lasts, the harder I think about the way I did my job as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist. It’s a little (emphasis on the word “little”) easier for me to look at my clinical decisions as well as my relationships with my colleagues, trainees, and patients and think about how I might have done things differently.

The word “regret” is misleading, because I did many things right. But I also made mistakes. Every psychiatrist makes diagnoses and treatment plans that can and should be reconsidered after careful thought as new information is discovered by scientists.

The emphasis is on the word “science.” Politicians and laypersons tend to misunderstand science, and sometimes even scientists get it wrong. I believe that science is often either ignored or politicized and that’s a common mistake.

As a clinician, I was always more of a gunslinger, but I always respected the science. So does Dr. Dawson and so do many other clinicians in medicine. Politicians often get it wrong. Usually, physicians as well as other clinicians, in the face of those mistakes, remain dedicated to upholding the principles of safe, practical, and effective health care. Often, in the face of the flying storms of misguided rhetoric, it’s still possible to do the right thing.

Overdiagnosis of Psychiatric Disorders Still Happens