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Wessely - Medical school “banter” denigrating GPs and psychiatrists must stop

CFS_for_19_years

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Medical school “banter” denigrating GPs and psychiatrists must stop, say college heads
http://www.bmj.com/content/354/bmj.i5316

Two of the UK’s most senior doctors have called for an end to the damaging “banter” in medical schools, which they claim is dissuading students from applying to general practice and psychiatry.
Maureen Baker, chair of the Royal College of general practitioners, and Simon Wessely, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said that “the systematic denigration” of their specialties was putting patient safety at risk by contributing to a shortfall of GPs across the country and was stifling efforts to achieve parity of esteem between physical and mental health.

In a joint editorial in the British Journal of General Practice
Good news for psychiatry.

ETA:
Found the full length article here:
Not such friendly banter? GPs and psychiatrists against the systematic denigration of their specialties
http://bjgp.org/content/66/651/508
British Journal of General Practice
This is rich:
Deriding psychiatrists — and our patients — in such a way stimulates stigma in society and in doing so risks discouraging patients with mental health conditions from seeking help, for mental and physical health issues.
This is entirely incongruous with the current drive for parity of esteem between physical and mental health, a governmental priority.

Such besmirching and stigmatising banter ultimately disrespects and threatens the health of our patients. A learning environment that allows this to exist does not foster any such parity and if we don’t have parity of esteem between physical and mental health within medicine, then how can we expect it to exist outside?

It is about insisting that all of our patients, with physical health problems, mental health problems, or both, are treated with respect and dignity. Currently, medicine is lagging behind wider society in achieving parity of esteem between physical and mental health.
 
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Sean

Senior Member
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7,378
...and was stifling efforts to achieve parity of esteem between physical and mental health.
It works like this, Prof, because clearly you ain't figured it out yet...

If mental health experts and theories and policies want parity of esteem, and – let's be blunt – an equal slice of the power and money pie, you have to meet the same standards as for physical health experts and theories and policies, which are currently an order of magnitude or three higher than your profession's.

Standards like proper blinding, homogeneous selection criteria when studying specific disorders, realistic thresholds and definitions of improvement and recovery, objective outcome measures (used, used properly, and given their fair epistemological weight), the most rigorous of harms reporting, fair and prompt reporting of outcomes, adequate data sharing,... Stop me if you have heard this story before.

Besides, you personally don't seem to have suffered any impediment in your rise to great power and influence, nor to your wilfully inserting your pet psycho-drama morality-play fairytale into certain patient's lives. Or the whole of society. Your profession, at least in the UK, does not seem to lack political power over policy.

How much power do you think you and your profession are entitled to, given the evidence base, or lack of it, upon which you base your claim?

Here's the bottom line, Prof., that you guys are going to have to grapple with, whether you like it or not:

Subjective outcome measures, either patient self-report or clinician assessed, are not enough, if they are not also properly blinded or supported by objective outcome measures, preferably both.

None of which in any way downplays or disputes the importance of mental health. Just your profession's claim to understand it and how to improve it, and hence your 'right' to impose that inadequate understanding upon others, no matter how noble you may believe your intentions.

You see the difference?

Here endeth the lesson. :nerd:
 

CFS_for_19_years

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USA
Also added this to my first post:

Found the full length article here:
Not such friendly banter? GPs and psychiatrists against the systematic denigration of their specialties
http://bjgp.org/content/66/651/508

British Journal of General Practice
This is rich:
Deriding psychiatrists — and our patients — in such a way stimulates stigma in society and in doing so risks discouraging patients with mental health conditions from seeking help, for mental and physical health issues.
This is entirely incongruous with the current drive for parity of esteem between physical and mental health, a governmental priority.

Such besmirching and stigmatising banter ultimately disrespects and threatens the health of our patients. A learning environment that allows this to exist does not foster any such parity and if we don’t have parity of esteem between physical and mental health within medicine, then how can we expect it to exist outside?

It is about insisting that all of our patients, with physical health problems, mental health problems, or both, are treated with respect and dignity. Currently, medicine is lagging behind wider society in achieving parity of esteem between physical and mental health.
 
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Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
How Orwellian can you get?

The only person I have come across besmirching patients was Peter White. He stood up in Bristol and said that the patients were thoroughly horrible.

And it is only because of the PACE trial that I have come to realise that standards in psychiatric research are so much below that in medicine.

There is something called leading by example. Some people don't seem to get it.
 

Art Vandelay

Senior Member
Messages
470
Location
Australia
I think Wessely has a bit of a victim complex. At least, when he's not getting enough attention :p

I diagnose Pervasive False Victimhood Disorder (it will be in the next DSM, trust me). My recommendation is six months of CBT and standing on one leg in the bath whistling "Rule Britannia" three times a day after which all those false beliefs should disappear.
 

Glycon

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Snow Leopard

Hibernating
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South Australia
Why can't you hear a psychiatrist using the bathroom?
Because the 'p' is silent.

How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
Only one, but the bulb has got to really WANT to change.

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

An elevator walks into a psychiatrist office and says, hey Doc i think I'm out of control.
The Doctor replies your an elevator in your line of work your going to have your ups and downs!

What do you call a student that got C's all the way through med school?
Hopefully not your psychiatrist.

Why did the doctor send the expression to a psychiatrist?
Because it wasn't rational.

What's the difference between a psychologist and a magician?
A psychologist pulls habits out of rats!

They sent me to see a shrink. Why didn't they shrink the amount of the bill?

:whistle:
 

Forbin

Senior Member
Messages
966

"That's the story of my life!
NO RESPECT!
I don't get no respect at all!"


rodney_dangerfield_2390.jpg


"My psychiatrist told me I was crazy.
I said, 'I want a second opinion.'
He said, 'All right. You're ugly, too!'"
~ Rodney Dangerfield​
 
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Messages
724
Location
Yorkshire, England
This rhetorical grouping of patients and psychiatrists together is obscene.

The biggest group of people who stigmatize psychiatrists, are probably the patients who have undergone 'treatment' without consent.

It would not be possible to forcibly 'treat' patients without stigmatizing them first, in order to remove basic civil rights protections from them.

Who produces the 'evidence' that this group of people are uniquely different, uniquely dangerous?

The following quotes from http://hubpages.com/health/Stigma-a...ychiatric-professionals-are-the-main-culprits

What is stigma?
A concise definition of stigma is, ‘A sign of disgrace or discredit which sets a person apart from others’ (1). A helpful distinction can be made between two types of stigma, Firstly, the ‘public stigma’ associated with the way that lay people perceive, and react towards, those individuals identified as displaying psychiatric disorders. Secondly, ‘self stigma’ whereby people suffering mental health problems develop awareness of the way they are perceived and begin to concur with these negative evaluations (2), a process that may contribute to the low self-esteem that is prevalent among psychiatric patients.

A more detailed exploration of stigma has proposed a four stage process (3), all elements of which need to be present for someone to be stigmatized:

1. Labelling: the person is put into a category (e.g. ‘mental patient’ or ‘psychotic’) on the basis of a distinguishing characteristic.

2. Stereotyping: an automatic (some might say lazy) process whereby the label is instantly assumed to signify negative attributes.

3. Separation: the emergence of an ‘us and them’ attitude leading to the labelled person being viewed as an outsider.

4. Loss of status/discrimination: the labelled person is denied rights and opportunities within society.

Service users and their families view psychiatric professionals as the most potent source of stigma and discrimination for people with mental health problems (19)(20). Those labelled as “schizophrenic” commonly feel that they are not believed by professionals and that complaints about their physical health are not taken seriously (21).

Legislation across the developed world allows people deemed to be suffering from a mental illness to be detained without trial, against their will, and forcibly drugged, despite never having committed a crime and retaining the wherewithal to make their own decisions. As such, many people within the psychiatric system are denied certain civil liberties that are afforded all other citizens (with the possible exception of suspected terrorists!), these restrictive practices often being justified on the basis of dubious assumptions about their dangerousness. By implementing such discriminatory legislation, psychiatric professionals effectively collude with the government of the day to exclude troublesome sections of our community under the guise of treating mental illness (22).

(19) Walter, G. (1998). The attitude of health professionals towards carers and individuals with mental illness. Australian Psychiatry, 6,70–72.

(20) Pinfold, V., Thornicroft, G, Huxley, P. & Farmer, P. (2005). Active ingredients in anti-stigma programmes in mental health. International Review of Psychiatry,17(2), 123 – 131.

(22) Summerfield, D. (2001). “Does psychiatry stigmatize?” Journal of the RoyalSociety of Medicine, 94,148 – 149.