Posted by CareBear04 on January 15, 2008, at 0:30:38
In reply to Re: Your psychiatrist is incompetent., posted by star008 on January 15, 2008, at 0:09:22
i agree that no one can make the judgment that a doctor is incompotent based just on the information we have from this post, but i don't think it's necessary to have a personal relationship with the dr to come to such a conclusion, at least with respect to this particular patient. doctors, like everyone else, have a duty of reaosnable care, and in medicine, this expectation is defined by the standards and practices of the profession. most all of us who use this board know that psychiatry is by no means an exact science and that many treatments fail. when they choose this specialty, pdocs accept the challenge of treating even patients who seem not to respond well to medications and making reasonable effort to try all available options. there's also the doctor-patient relationship aspect and the duty not to make the patient's situation worse. although we would need more information, one could conclude from what we know that (1) whether or not he meant to be discouraging, the pdoc made comments that made a patient feel like they were out of options, and (2) he indicated reluctance to pursue other treatments. i don't think it matters if he was frustrated; that's part of the job he took on, if not when he chose psychiatry, then when he agreed to treat this particular patient. frustration doesn't authorize him to cause someone to lose hope or to minimize his treatment efforts. if he can't or won't live up to the standard required of him, he should discontinue treatment and refer her to another pdoc. so the way i see the issue isn't in terms of competence/incompetence but of whether this pdoc is exercising his abilities to provide reasonable care with respect to this person.
just my opinion...
poster:CareBear04
thread:806208
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080114/msgs/806613.html