IUBio

How could psychiatry be merged into Neurology?

LostBoyinNC deepsand562 at aol.comInsane
Sat Sep 7 23:25:38 EST 2002


There would be tons of hoopla, lots of bitching and moaning. Ive thought about
it and one of the biggest obstacles to formally merging psychiatry into
Neurology is the fact that the mental health field is a professional career
field that pays quite well. There are a lot of people who make their living as
psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. If there job was transferred
over to Neurology, they'd be left without jobs, psychiatrists would be left
without their $200,000 a year lucrative private practices. Needless to say,
there would be a lot of institutional resistance to this concept of merging
psychiatry into Neurology.

Another obstacle lies within Neurology itself. From my understanding, currently
Neurologists dont want to treat the severely mentally ill and they are
satisfied leaving this job up to psychiatry. This attitude has to be changed in
the future. The mentality in Neurology of "unless it manifests itself
physically, we dont want to deal with it." In other words Neurology only wants
to deal with problems of walking, movement, balance, speech, head injuries,
dementia, etc. 

But what about when you have a severe case of mental illness and the person has
severe sleep dysfunction? Sleep is clearly a nervous system controlled bodily
function. Neurologists study sleep and run the sleep labs, not psychiatrists.
What about when  a person with severe mental illness has severe cognitive
problems? Thats clearly neurological, not psychological. 

The time has come for these fields to formally merge, one way or another. But
the question is HOW? Its going to be no easy task, with opposition on both
sides.

I personally believe this problem could be handled best if outside people were
brought in. I believe our nations top leaders need to become directly
interested and involved in this issue. Senator Pete Domenici of NM is the only
one I know of who seems personally interested in real mental illness reform. We
have got to get some people elected who have personal interest in this. I dont
believe it will be fixed by trying to push it up from the bottom, its got to be
dropped from a height instead.

Im wondering if Senator John Edwards (Democrat) of North Carolina might be a
man to help this problem along? Edwards is very interested in healthcare reform
and if the idea was presented to him intelligently, he might adopt the merge
psychiatry into Neurology cause. There are rumors he will be running for
president in 2004, and frankly as articulate as the guy is, I wouldnt be
surprised if he wins. 

Anyway, excuse me for ranting. There arent a lot of places left on the Internet
anymore where you can have these sorts of discussions without being castigated
and jumped all over on.

Eric

Basic course in logic 101:

Psychiatry is bullshit...psychiatrists are full of shit




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