| If you don't get the right diagnosis for your | | | | who did turn to traditional medicine, just 48% of |
| depression, you won't get the right treatment. I | | | | those who went to psychiatrists got the |
| have written many times about the importance | | | | "minimally adequate care," while only 12% of |
| of getting care for a serious mental illness, such | | | | those who went to general doctors did. |
| as major depression, from a psychiatrist. Yet | | | | About half of people who seek help for a mental |
| according to the Wall Street Journal over half of | | | | illness see a general doctor, not a specialist. The |
| all antidepressant and antipsychotic prescriptions | | | | survey didn't ask people why, but mental-health |
| are written by general practioners or primary | | | | experts say that people often turn first to a |
| care physicians. This static has always confounded | | | | primary-care doctor for a variety of reasons, |
| me. Psychiatrists are specially trained in diagnosing, | | | | including a lack of qualified specialists in their |
| assessing and treating mental illnesses. | | | | vicinity, lack of insurance coverage for |
| Psychiatrists are up-to-date on the latest drugs to | | | | mental-health services or lack of confidence in |
| treat specific mental illnesses, while primary care | | | | someone other than their family physician. |
| physicians are kept up-to-date on the latest drugs | | | | In my opinion, if you don't get the right diagnosis, |
| covering a broad range of illnesses. | | | | you won't get the right treatment. Patients |
| In the once-a-decade report funded by the | | | | suffering with a difficult mental illness must make |
| National Institutes of Health( June 2005), | | | | an appointment with a qualified psychiatrist, to |
| researchers found that one-quarter of Americans | | | | improve the probability of getting the correct |
| had a psychiatric disorder in the year prior to the | | | | treatment. There is a treatment just approved |
| survey, and 40% of them sought treatment, up | | | | by the FDA for chronic or recurrent depression: |
| from just 25% who sought treatment in the | | | | vagus nerve stimulation-a ninety-minute out |
| previous report a decade ago. What researchers | | | | patient procedure. |
| said was particularly troubling was that, of those | | | | |