report that antidepressants don't seem to work for dementia patients
according to a couple of trials.
In a way it's a good thing. I'm not sure mental health is so easily
described to GPs by medical texts or diagnostic criteria.
The simplest thing a GP needs to know is if a patient comes in and says
they're not feeling mentally well then they need to do something.
There's still this fear of malingering but that, in itself, could be a
mental illness if someone judged it so.
The real problem for primary care physicans is the time they have with a
patient. They need to rely on a handful of minutes to judge whether a
person is depressed or mentally unwell or whatever. The self-report
thing isn't enough in the sense that some people may be suffering in
silence. Unreported subjective unwellness sounds like an oxymoron in a
way. Hm...that line definitely needs some more thinking.
Anyway, GPs are ill equipped to deal with mental health for many
reasons, not least of which is their biomedical learning. There's also
their conditioning through medical school. It's a problem which Dr Liz
Miller is battling against I hope.
Doctors have to be tough bastards to get through medical training.
Imagine what it feels like to lose your first paitent? Imagine what you
become when you don't feel the loss? Doctors have to become resilient in
this way to save their sanity, just like snipers. After taking or losing
that first life the rest is a lot easier.
But I think that process leaves them unable to understand what it is
like to be a normal human.
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