|
|
|
by Art Rousseau,
M.D. and Barbara Masters, M.D.
Oklahoma physicians must be on alert for a medical coup in our state - a highly orchestrated, finely tuned, richly financed effort by non-physician psychologists to gain the right to prescribe medications to their patients. The Oklahoma Psychiatric Physicians Association needs your help in maintaining excellent care and insuring safety for the mentally ill citizens of Oklahoma. Psychologists are attempting to prescribe medication through legislation, not education. It just happened in the New Mexico. In a swift action that left physicians and the medical community at large concerned for their patients, New Mexico psychologists won the legal right to prescribe medications signaling the beginning of a bitter national debate. New Mexico is now the only state in the union to allow psychologists to prescribe. Oklahoma psychiatric physicians are concerned the added right to prescribe would be a move that seriously threatens the health of its most vulnerable of citizens, including the mentally ill adults, children and the elderly. Diagnosing a severe mental illness is a diagnosis of exclusion that requires a medical doctor. A psychologist does not have the medical education to know whether a physical illness may be causing the symptoms. It would be very dangerous for a patient's physical illness to be ignored because the psychologist misread the symptoms. Psychologists in New Mexico argued they needed prescriptive authority especially in the rural areas where psychiatrists are not as plentiful. FACT: There are at least 330 active, practicing psychiatrists in Oklahoma and essentially no difference in the number of rural psychiatrists to rural psychologists. Psychologists in New Mexico also argued the family practice physicians in the rural areas are not competent to prescribe psychotropic medications. FACT: In Oklahoma's rural areas, family practice doctors have been prescribing psychotropic medications for their patients successfully for years. In fact, primary care physicians prescribe 80 percent of all psychotropic medications. Any family with a loved one who has been diagnosed with a mental illness knows how complex these diseases are to treat. Allowing professionals with no medical training to have prescribing rights is a danger to patients and a disservice to the highly trained physicians who spend years studying the inner workings of the human brain to ensure safe and proper care and treatment. As a member of Oklahoma's medical community, you must begin by contributing to the Oklahoma Psychiatric Physicians Association lobby fund. This fund was established to help support public education and lobby efforts regarding the psychologist prescribing issue. Also, as a member of the medical community, please be sure you are a member of the Oklahoma State Medical Association and contribute to the lobbying efforts made by them on behalf of all physicians in Oklahoma. Oklahoma must avoid this prescription for disaster. ###### |
Send mail to oklapsychiatry@yahoo.com with questions or comments about
this web site.
|