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That quote may have been in context of a psychiatry study, but applies equaly well to huge swathes of medical research.

by gohrt 13y ago

lutusp 13y ago
With one important difference -- when a medical procedure or substance is shown to be useless or dangerous, doctors stop using it or go to jail. By contrast, psychologists just carry on with business as usual -- for example, there are still therapists offering recovered memory therapy. If a medical drug were proven ineffective as anti-depression drugs have, doctors would have to stop prescribing it or be sued for malpractice. You can't sue psychologists for malpractice, because there's no such thing as good psychological practice for comparison. If psychologists were forced to adopt evidence-based practice, they would be subject to lawsuits for the first time, which is why they have resisted such proposals: Link: http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/pc.aspx http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/pc.aspx Quote: "Some APA members have asked me why I have chosen to sponsor an APA Presidential Initiative on Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) in Psychology, expressing fears that the results might be used against psychologists by managed-care companies and malpractice lawyers." The critics were right -- evidence-based practice would have been a disaster for psychology -- and the proposal (2005) was shouted down.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > If a medical drug were proven ineffective as anti-depression drugs have, doctors would have to stop prescribing it or be sued for malpractice. Anti-depressive (and other psychiatric) drugs are a subset of "medical drugs". > You can't sue psychologists for malpractice, because there's no such thing as good psychological practice for comparison. You can, in fact, sue a psyschologist for malpractice [1], but a psychologist isn't going to be prescribing anti-depressants in the first place (and, if they try to, they've got bigger legal problems than potential malpractice, starting with practicing medicine without a license.) [1] e.g., http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2007/11/19/85123.htm http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2007/11/19/85123.h...
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Anti-depressive (and other psychiatric) drugs are a subset of "medical drugs". No, they are not. Medical drugs are prescribed by doctors to treat medical conditions, not psychological ones. There are some medical drugs that are prescribed off-label to treat mental conditions, but that's a shady practice (albeit a common one). > You can, in fact, sue a psyschologist for malpractice ... Yes, but you can't compare what he does to effective practices, because there aren't any. This is why such cases are so rare, and why malpractice insurance is nearly unheard of among psychiatrists and psychologists. Many psychologists and psychiatrists have ruined the lives of their clients but proved immune to prosecution -- for example, the psychiatrist who prescribed the drugs that killed Rebecca Riley was eventually allowed to continue practicing psychiatry, and was neither prosecuted or sued (Rebecca's father was convicted of first-degree murder, her mother of second-degree murder). http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/hold_for_verdic_1.html http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/hold_... Quote: "Shortly after Rebecca died, Kifuji had entered into a voluntary agreement with the board to halt her practice. But two years later, after a grand jury declined to indict her and the board conducted its own inquiry, the board last fall allowed her to return to practice. She is currently seeing patients at Tufts Medical Center." > ... but a psychologist isn't going to be prescribing anti-depressants True, unless by the term "psychologist" we mean anyone practicing clinical psychology, in the same way that a physicist practices physics -- a way of speaking that groups particle physicists and cosmologists together, two fields much less alike than psychiatry and clinical psychology.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Medical drugs are prescribed by doctors to treat medical conditions, not psychological ones. There is no such thing as a "medical condition". There are physical conditions (of which psychiatric conditions are a subset) and medical (as opposed to, e.g., surgical) treatments for physical conditions. For psychiatric conditions not to be physical would involve mystical mind-body dualism, which is an anti-scientific proposition. > Yes, but you can't compare what he does to effective practices, because there aren't any. Psychological malpractice is generally a subset of medical malpractice, whose standard isn't about "effective practices" but, like all professional malpractice, is about accepted standards within the profession. > This is why such cases are so rare Psychological malpractice cases aren't that rare. It's probably somewhat harder to establish causality in psychological malpractice cases than, say, some of the more obvious kinds of surgical malpractice cases, but that's not a matter of standards but of the difficulty in tracing particular harms to particular failures to meet the professional standard of care. > why malpractice insurance is nearly unheard of among psychiatrists and psychologists. Malpractice insurance is a practical necessity for psychiatrists -- who are, after all, medical doctors -- and is not at all uncommon for psychologists in clinical practice. > Many psychologists and psychiatrists have ruined the lives of their clients but proved immune to prosecution And many medical doctors in specialties other than psychiatry have killed patients and yet not been successfully prosecuted. That doesn't mean that medical doctors are, as a class, immune to malpractice claims, it just means that not every thing that they do that ends up causing harm ends up resulting in legal liability. Psychiatrists are no different. > unless by the term "psychologist" we mean anyone practicing clinical psychology Psychiatry isn't clinical psychology, it is medicine, and its practiced by medical doctors with a particular specialty, not psychologists. Making up your own non-standard definitions of terms to justify your completely inaccurate rants isn't helpful.

That quote may have been in context of a psychiatry study, but applies equaly well to huge swathes of medical research.

by gohrt 13y ago

That quote may have been in context of a psychiatry study, but applies equaly well to huge swathes of medical research.

With one important difference -- when a medical procedure or substance is shown to be useless or dangerous, doctors stop using it or go to jail. By contrast, psychologists just carry on with business as usual -- for example, there are still therapists offering recovered memory therapy. If a medical drug were proven ineffective as anti-depression drugs have, doctors would have to stop prescribing it or be sued for malpractice. You can't sue psychologists for malpractice, because there's no such thing as good psychological practice for comparison. If psychologists were forced to adopt evidence-based practice, they would be subject to lawsuits for the first time, which is why they have resisted such proposals: Link: http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/pc.aspx http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/pc.aspx Quote: "Some APA members have asked me why I have chosen to sponsor an APA Presidential Initiative on Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) in Psychology, expressing fears that the results might be used against psychologists by managed-care companies and malpractice lawyers." The critics were right -- evidence-based practice would have been a disaster for psychology -- and the proposal (2005) was shouted down.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> If a medical drug were proven ineffective as anti-depression drugs have, doctors would have to stop prescribing it or be sued for malpractice. Anti-depressive (and other psychiatric) drugs are a subset of "medical drugs". > You can't sue psychologists for malpractice, because there's no such thing as good psychological practice for comparison. You can, in fact, sue a psyschologist for malpractice [1], but a psychologist isn't going to be prescribing anti-depressants in the first place (and, if they try to, they've got bigger legal problems than potential malpractice, starting with practicing medicine without a license.) [1] e.g., http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2007/11/19/85123.htm http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2007/11/19/85123.h...
- lutusp 13y ago
  > Anti-depressive (and other psychiatric) drugs are a subset of "medical drugs". No, they are not. Medical drugs are prescribed by doctors to treat medical conditions, not psychological ones. There are some medical drugs that are prescribed off-label to treat mental conditions, but that's a shady practice (albeit a common one). > You can, in fact, sue a psyschologist for malpractice ... Yes, but you can't compare what he does to effective practices, because there aren't any. This is why such cases are so rare, and why malpractice insurance is nearly unheard of among psychiatrists and psychologists. Many psychologists and psychiatrists have ruined the lives of their clients but proved immune to prosecution -- for example, the psychiatrist who prescribed the drugs that killed Rebecca Riley was eventually allowed to continue practicing psychiatry, and was neither prosecuted or sued (Rebecca's father was convicted of first-degree murder, her mother of second-degree murder). http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/hold_for_verdic_1.html http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/hold_... Quote: "Shortly after Rebecca died, Kifuji had entered into a voluntary agreement with the board to halt her practice. But two years later, after a grand jury declined to indict her and the board conducted its own inquiry, the board last fall allowed her to return to practice. She is currently seeing patients at Tufts Medical Center." > ... but a psychologist isn't going to be prescribing anti-depressants True, unless by the term "psychologist" we mean anyone practicing clinical psychology, in the same way that a physicist practices physics -- a way of speaking that groups particle physicists and cosmologists together, two fields much less alike than psychiatry and clinical psychology.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Medical drugs are prescribed by doctors to treat medical conditions, not psychological ones. There is no such thing as a "medical condition". There are physical conditions (of which psychiatric conditions are a subset) and medical (as opposed to, e.g., surgical) treatments for physical conditions. For psychiatric conditions not to be physical would involve mystical mind-body dualism, which is an anti-scientific proposition. > Yes, but you can't compare what he does to effective practices, because there aren't any. Psychological malpractice is generally a subset of medical malpractice, whose standard isn't about "effective practices" but, like all professional malpractice, is about accepted standards within the profession. > This is why such cases are so rare Psychological malpractice cases aren't that rare. It's probably somewhat harder to establish causality in psychological malpractice cases than, say, some of the more obvious kinds of surgical malpractice cases, but that's not a matter of standards but of the difficulty in tracing particular harms to particular failures to meet the professional standard of care. > why malpractice insurance is nearly unheard of among psychiatrists and psychologists. Malpractice insurance is a practical necessity for psychiatrists -- who are, after all, medical doctors -- and is not at all uncommon for psychologists in clinical practice. > Many psychologists and psychiatrists have ruined the lives of their clients but proved immune to prosecution And many medical doctors in specialties other than psychiatry have killed patients and yet not been successfully prosecuted. That doesn't mean that medical doctors are, as a class, immune to malpractice claims, it just means that not every thing that they do that ends up causing harm ends up resulting in legal liability. Psychiatrists are no different. > unless by the term "psychologist" we mean anyone practicing clinical psychology Psychiatry isn't clinical psychology, it is medicine, and its practiced by medical doctors with a particular specialty, not psychologists. Making up your own non-standard definitions of terms to justify your completely inaccurate rants isn't helpful.