Should General Practitioners Be Able To Describe Psychiatric Medication?

When we are ill, we trust our General Practitioners to provide the best treatment available. Doctors take care of all our general healthcare needs. If they do not have the capacity to treat us, we trust to be referred to a specialist that handles our specific needs. This is especially true when the main concern is our children’s mental health. Unfortunately, it has become much more common to get a psychiatric prescription from a primary doctor than from a Psychiatrist; The correct treatment or diagnosis is not received due to misinformation from the wrong type of doctor (Smith, Inappropriate). This statement is only enhanced by Kevin P Miller’s film, Generation Rx: Resisting the Culture of Overmedication. Miller puts together detailed accounts of the damage caused by psychiatric medication prescribed by non-other that our trusted doctors. Psychiatric drugs are dangerous and unpredictable. Therefore, general practitioners should not be able to prescribe psychiatric drugs to children when they …show more content…
Antidepressants can cause people to gain weight; become nauseated; alter the patient’s behavior; cause sleeping disorders; and can even add to suicide attempts (The National Institute of Mental Health). These type of side effects should be a cause for concern. Anti-anxiety medication can cause people to feel confused; it can cause nausea; can cause headaches; patients can become exhausted; skin issues can arise; depression can develop; suicide attempts happen (The National Institute of Mental Health). Both Anti-anxiety medicine and Antidepressants seem to share some of the same symptoms. Mood stabilizers can cause swelling on or around the face and extremities; abnormal heartbeat; people might hear and see things (The National Institute of Mental Health). Since psychiatric drugs can cause such drastic changes to the human system, a specialist should be the one to prescribe such