Posted by SLS on November 12, 2022, at 14:29:09
In reply to Re: Do psychiatrists offer value for money?, posted by linkadge on November 12, 2022, at 14:03:22
I know the GPs that tried to treat me, and the limit of their clinical experience and psychiatric expertise.
I know the experts I've seen, and picked their brains with an insatiable desire to know what they knew (an impossibility, of course). I learned a lot that way. I had to. My ability to assimilate the written word was all but vacant. I could not read more than two sentences word-for-word. (I learned to skim).
I know the researchers and their input regarding the latest discoveries in biological psychiatry. My brain was one of the first to imaged on a PET scan in 1992 while I was a research subject at the National Institutes of Health.
Psychiatrists are probably the most underpaid of specialists. How much do you have to pay to enter a hospital and have an emergency appendectomy? What about near-fatal sepsis?
A surgeon is not a bargain if they accidentally lacerate your liver during the appendectomy.
A psychiatrist is not a bargain unless you achieve remission with one the first three treatments he uses on you.
I am sure that GPs exist who possess sufficient knowledge and experience to treat de novo cases of depression and anxiety disorders, but I doubt that they would be as valuable to treat TRD as are psychiatrists. Depression ruins lives and causes genuine psychic pain. Is it worth spending moderately more for someone who can treat you better and faster?
I would say that the probability of responding to treatment quickly is greater if you use an specialist. That's generally the way it is with medicine.
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
poster:SLS
thread:1121021
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20220917/msgs/1121028.html