🚀 go-pugleaf

Regarding Melissa Elsner's call for opinions:

In my opinion, it is far more important to establish guidelines for
adequate training before beginning any discussion about what the
benefits to our profession would be--protecting patient safety should be
tantamount to the prestige and convenience of being able to sign our
clients' scripts.

In my opinion, "adequate training" would most necessarily -have- to
include anatomy & physiology; pathophysiology; organic, molecular, &
bio-chemistry; pharmacology; and psychopharmacology. I have yet to see
any suggestions on how psychologists would be trained (what classes, how
long, taught by whom, etc) but it would be in patients best interests if
psychologists began prescribing medication that the psychologist know
just as much about how that drug will affect the rest of their body--as
well as any interactions with existing medical regimens the patient may
be on--not just the effects on serotonin reuptake in the brain, for
example.

Also, would a physician still be responsible for the preliminary
examination deeming medication a safe option for each client for whom
the psychologist wishes to prescribe medication?

I have many more questions than answers for this topic. My Clinical
Health Psychology program is taught at a medical school--we have a few
classes with the med students--but not any courses that would deem me
qualified to prescribe medication.

If anyone has seen actual proposals of what the post-doctoral training
for psychologists would include, I would like to see them (E-mail),
maybe that would help sway me, but for now, I do not think psychologists
should be prescribing medication unless a rigorous post-doctoral program
is completed that would include at the bare minimum all aspects of
chemistry, physiology & disease processes, and medication interactions
as well as their intended actions.

Julie Sem
Clinical Health Psychology
Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Yeshiva University

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