"You Know You Have a Bad Doctor When He is a General Practitioner and Thinks He Is Also A Psychiatrist"

by Becky
(Long Beach, California)

After going through a divorce and a bankruptcy, I was seeing a psychologist who recommended I see a Psychiatrist regarding Depression. When I went to my family doctor through my health plan for the referral, he insisted on treating me himself. He prescribed an antidepressant and I took the dose he prescribed. After a few weeks, instead of getting better, I felt worse. I was so bad my Psychologist advised me to have someone take care of my children for a few weeks and told me to go back to my family doctor and insist on getting a referral to a real psychiatrist. I went back to see the doctor and after very nicely insisting on a referral, he had me follow him to the front desk which was within sight and earshot of not only the office staff but the entire waiting room. The doctor slapped down my patient chart in front of the receptionist and said in a loud voice for everyone to hear "She needs a pscyh referral". Everybody looked at me and he made me feel like I was a total nut case. As you can imagine, this situation happened before the confidentiality laws came into effect.

I went to an actual psychiatrist a week later and after he reviewed my case told me that the dose of medication I had been prescribed was double the dose I should have been prescribed. This was causing the depression to get worse instead of giving me relief. I started taking half the amount as he advised and a few weeks later I was starting to feel much better and had my 3 children come home. I learned through this experience that General Practitioners (family doctors) are allowed to treat anyone for anything because of the M.D. license. However, a good physician will always act on the best interest of the patient, not his pocketbook.