Vigilance Is Required For Adequate Informed Consent

One of the main reasons for me writing this blog is to discuss medication safety and adverse effects. This is no small task since the orientation of most research and clinical work is making a diagnosis and where appropriate selecting the correct medication. A lot of work goes into those determinations but an equal amount of work needs to be directed toward managing common adverse effects and preventing serious adverse effects/events of the medication. In order to do that practitioners need to realize that they are treating a genetically diverse population. That means there will always be a subgroup of people who cannot tolerate medications. There will also be a subgroup of people who respond very well to medications and variations in between.

A good example is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These medications are commonly first-line agents for depression and anxiety. About one person out of every seven will not be able to tolerate them. The same is true of every major class and psychiatric medications. That is a source of frustration for practitioners because it means that even if the correct diagnosis is made the optimal medication may not be available because the person cannot tolerate it. In the case of SSRIs, a person may not be able to tolerate any other medication in that class.

In addition to genetic heterogeneity affecting the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs, patients are also taking other classes medications and have other medical morbidities that may contraindicate the use of certain psychotropic medications. In the case of bupropion, any history of eating disorder or current eating disorder, any seizure history, and any traumatic brain injury that may predispose to seizures are contraindications to using that medication. Appropriate medical care requires that practitioners are aware of all of the contraindications and precautions listed in FDA package inserts for medications.

What about the case of a healthy young person with no medical comorbidity who needs treatment for depression or anxiety. What is important for that person to know in order to safely take that medication? What should be explicitly discussed with them? What constitutes adequate informed consent? What can be done in the time a practitioner has to make the diagnosis and educate the patient? These are not trivial questions since most practices are scheduling patients every 15 minutes in some cases new patients are seen for 30 minutes. All that makes it seem like psychopharmacology is a very easy job but the information transfer during the sessions is critical and there is plenty of evidence that it is inadequate.

There is an excellent discussion of the problem by Rajnish Mago, MD in the references (2).  He considers a number of ways to assess and manage adverse effects including open-ended questions, checklists administered to the patient, structured interviews by clinicians, and spontaneous reports by patients. His review of this literature shows that the sensitivity and specificity of all of these methods are lacking and some of them take so much time they could not be applied clinically. He gave as an example of structured interviews administered by clinicians that take up to 60 minutes just to determine the adverse effects.  The other problem with determining the adverse effects is whether or not they can be attributed to the medication that has been prescribed. In clinical trials, researchers often estimate whether adverse effects/events are due to the medication or not. In practice that is a difficult determination due to both placebo and nocebo effects.

Vital signs and laboratory measures can also constitute adverse effect measurements. In psychiatry liver function tests, renal function including plasma creatinine and estimated GFR, CBC and ANC, TSH, T4, basic metabolic profile, electrocardiograms, and EEGs are all metrics that can be followed to determine medication effects. Vital signs should also be routinely done on anyone taking medications to check for effects on blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rhythm. Those measurements constitute more specific measures that could lead to clinical action.

There has been some emphasis on measurement-based practice that involves the extensive use of rating scales.  Many of the authors in this area seem to mistake rating scales as both objective and quantitative measures when they are neither.  I remain unconvinced that this is the best approach and think that it has resulted in the over medication of large numbers of people who have a certain rating scale score but no diagnosis.  There has been very little discussion of the analysis of longitudinal data and what these rating scale scores actually mean. The controversy in this area applies to both the diagnostic indices as well as the side effect indices. My approach in dealing with side effects is that they should be completely eliminated wherever possible and that irreversible adverse effects need to be avoided.

Dr. Mago’s paper reviews recommendations for improving adverse effect reporting and clinical trials and also his recommendations for clinical practice that basically come down to telling patients about all adverse effects that occur at a rate 5% greater than placebo and all potentially serious for life-threatening adverse effects even if they are rare. I am in complete agreement with those recommendations, and even have an approach that can work. It does require a degree of vigilance on the part of the clinician.

The attached table suggests why vigilance is required.  Psychiatrists need to be more vigilant than most physicians because no patient is expected to get complications or die as a direct result of our treatments. That historically has led the field to have a lower threshold for monitoring for potential side effects.  Given all of these constraints and the complexity of the situation is there a way to provide adequate informed consent about the medications that we prescribe?  I am talking about all physicians here and not just psychiatrists.  I think there is and I will walk through my process.

1.  I preface my remarks with my experience prescribing the medication: For example with common medications like naltrexone I will give an estimate of the percentage of people that tolerate the medication very well and the percentage that stop taking it and why. That sets an  expectation that a medication may or may not be well tolerated as a probability statement and that some people stop it because of adverse effects.

2.  I encourage people to do their own research. Anyone can pull up the FDA package insert on any medication these days by Googling: "[medication name] FDA package insert".  I tell them what to expect. I also tell them that I should be able to explain anything they find on the Internet about the medication if they have any questions or concerns. In the case of polypharmacy scenarios, I point out that the extremes of low doses and high doses of two agents and all of the combinations in between can be found this days with stated results ranging from very positive to very negative for the entire range of doses.  I also have the position that they can take as long as they want to do their own research and that in the meantime - no medication needs to be prescribed.

3.  I will discontinue the medication at any time and I am very explicit about that.  I do not expect anyone to "get used to" side effects because in my experience too many people get used to side effects and live with them on a long term basis.  I provide examples to illustrate the idea of living with side effects.

4.  I give them the MedlinePlus handout on the medication or show them how to get it.  The MedlinePlus handouts are really a product of American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).  I have emails both into MedlinePlus and AHSP inquiring about the process they use to determine the bullet points for the listed precautions and tiers of side effects. At the time of this post I have not been contacted by either organization.

5.  I tell them the common side effects, contraindications to the medication, and precautions - specially if they are on a medication or have a medical condition that is flagged in the precaution section.

6.  I discuss sexual side effects as a common side effects of medications.  About 20% of the people I see have this side effect from SSRI type antidepressants.  I review the possible effects on sexual function including decreased libido, impaired excitation phase (erections, lubrication), impaired orgasm, and altered ejaculation (delayed, retrograde).  This is a difficult issue for many people who have found an antidepressant that works but produces this side effect. The analysis of the problem is complicated by relationship problems and the initial effects of depression.  It is important to outline a strategy to address the problem even if the patient's preference is to delay any medication changes. 

A good example is the antidepressant duloxetine. The contraindications are straightforward - uncontrolled angle closure glaucoma and recent use of a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI). Beyond that clinical worsening and suicide risk, hepatotoxicity, orthostatic hypotension and syncope,  serotonin syndrome or neuroleptic malignant syndrome, abnormal bleeding, activation of mania/hypomania,  seizures, effect on blood pressure,  clinically important drug interactions, hyponatremia,  use in patients with concomitant illness, urinary hesitation and retention, and  laboratory test abnormalities are all listed as warnings and precautions.  The most important one that I typically discuss is liver function abnormalities due to alcohol use.  Although this is not a contraindication - the package insert basically says that a person with this problem should not take duloxetine. I have had people want to take the medication despite this warning and have had to discuss a monitoring plan with them as well as letting them know that my read of the package insert is that this plan carries with it more risk than one that adheres to the recommendations by the FDA.   The package insert also lists two different groups of Treatment Emergent Adverse Reactions in tables.  Both are more common than placebo and occur in 5% or 2% of patients in clinical trials.  There is a subsequent list of side effects defined with these frequencies:

"Reactions are categorized by body system according to the following definitions: frequent adverse reactions are those occurring in at least 1/100 patients; infrequent adverse reactions are those occurring in 1/100 to 1/1000 patients; rare reactions are those occurring in fewer than 1/1000 patients." 

It takes a lot of practice to get the above informed consent discussions down to 10 minutes, especially when polypharmacy and other specific problems need to be addressed at the same time. Even then, it is important to present the information every time. Shortcuts can result in a patient experiencing an uncommon side effect and that leads to self doubt on the part of the physician of the form:

"If I had mentioned that problem like I usually do would it have led to a more timely intervention to reduce the adverse effect?"

That is a question that most physicians don't want to keep asking themselves and it is why my vigilance is high.

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

References:

1: Bloom R, Amber KT. Identifying the incidence of rash, Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis in patients taking lamotrigine: a systematic review of 122 randomized controlled trials. An Bras Dermatol. 2017 Jan-Feb;92(1):139-141. doi: 10.1590/abd1806-4841.20175070. PubMed PMID: 28225977; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5312199.

2: Mago R. Adverse Effects of Psychotropic Medications: A Call to Action.Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2016 Sep;39(3):361-73. doi: 10.1016/j.psc.2016.04.005. Review. PubMed PMID: 27514294.

3: Tse L, Barr AM, Scarapicchia V, Vila-Rodriguez F. Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome: A Review from a Clinically Oriented Perspective. Curr Neuropharmacol. 2015;13(3):395-406. Review. PubMed PMID: 26411967; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4812801.

NEJM Three Part Series - Severe Medical Illness In the Context of Severe Mental Illness

Lisa Rosenbaum, MD has written a three part series in the New England Journal of Medicine that should be read by non-psychiatric physicians, family members, patients, and policy makers.  It is focused squarely on providing medical care to patients with severe mental illness and all that involves.  It is really impossible for psychiatrists to avoid the issue.  At some point in your career you find yourself in a situation with a patient who has a severe medical problems and refuses to address it because of the way that their decision making process has been impacted by mental illness.  If you are an inpatient or ACT team psychiatrist - it is usually up to you to come up with a plan to address that problem,  Several of the scenarios she describes across this series are directly from those settings.  Like any other specialty, psychiatrists will all migrate toward a certain niche.  For many reasons being that person who has to confront mentally ill patients about the fact that they are seriously ill or dying is not a position that is in great demand.  But mostly it is because inpatient and ACT team positions are rationed and none of the payers or administrators want those psychiatrists to do what they are capable of.

This series is part of an overall increase in psychiatric topics that are discussed in the NEJM.  So far this year there have been three Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital and a review of the basic science of addiction and a number of other articles on addiction and mental health policy.  Although I have not attempted to quantify it, there does seem to be a general increase in the coverage of psychiatric topics that include reviews of diagnostic groups, basic science mechanisms, clinical trials, and articles of general interest from the field.  The search function of the web site allows for grouping according to specialty and there are generally 20-30 psychiatry references per year over the past 5 years.  Lisa Rosenbaum is a cardiologist and is a national correspondent for the NEJM and in that field has probably seen a number of cases of people with severe mental illnesses and cardiac problems.

In the first article in the series she discusses the issues of informed consent and coercion in treating patients with severe mental illness.  It is well known that this population is undertreated from the perspective of primary treatment that is focused on the mental illness.  She uses an estimate of 9.8 million people with severe mental illness and only 60% of those people receiving treatment.  She cites the systemic problems of a lack of bed capacity 11.7/100,000 currently compared with 337 per 100,000 in 1955.  The contrast is more striking if per capita health expenditures for health and the number of psychiatric care beds per 100,000 population are compared.  For OECD data per capita expenditures for healthcare rank the USA at the very top by far and the per capita number of psychiatric care beds near the bottom compared with other countries.  The article discusses how deinstitutionalization was supposed to be linked to more community resources and not less.  The underfunded systems is portrayed as somewhat of a mysterious problem rather than system-wide rationing of psychiatric services.  The author in this case ties the underfunding to problems that it can't fix namely severely ill patients not seeking treatment  and antipsychotic drug side effects.  The high discontinuation rates in the CATIE trial are cited as proof of this problem.  I think that underfunding due to rationing is the problem.  With adequate resources comprehensive care is possible when the focus is comprehensive care more than medication.

The philosophy behind ignoring psychosis due to a psychiatric disorder compared with other physical illnesses is discussed.  The author points out that given the severe disability of these illnesses they cannot be ignored and that unlike other illnesses there are no major campaigns focused on prevention or treatment.  From there she transitions into the issue of intervention against the patient's wishes.  She discusses Stone's theory of paternalistic intervention if the affected person is likely to be grateful after they have been stabilized.  The flaw with that theory is that in many cases only a degree of psychiatric stabilization can be achieved.  In many cases it is likely that the person will have continued problems with insight and medical decision making and will continue to disagree with any suggested treatment.  She discusses the flaws with "dangerousness" as a component but does not take that discussion to its logical conclusion.  Dangerousness is of course not a psychiatric concept.  It is used by the courts as a basis for the initial stages of civil commitment and by managed care companies to decide if they will pay for psychiatric hospitalizations.  Any inpatient psychiatrist has found themselves talking with an insurance company reviewer - usually many states away who wants to know "where's the dangerousness?" and who is quick to deny payment for the treatment of a severely disabled person on that basis.  Dangerousness is probably the single word in the English language responsible for shutting down psychiatric care bed capacity and driving skilled psychiatrists away from the treatment of severe psychiatric disorders.

Rosenbaum makes the mistake of overemphasizing the importance of stigma.  She accepts as a given that stigma causes "countless harms" when the real harm is caused by systemic discrimination by the government and insurance companies.  The dangerousness concept as a justification for no treatment has done far more harm than the stigma of mental illness.  She also connects the attempt to counter stigma with illness minimization behaviors such as treating a person with a severe mental illness and impaired decision-making capacity as a competent decision maker.  Stigma is of course tied in with the recovery movement and policy that flows from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).  Overmedicalization and disregard for civil liberties is cited as a need for this recovery based model.  That cannot be reconciled with the fact that for at least 40 years, all states have had civil commitment and guardianship/conservatorship laws in place that are in place to assure the civil liberties of anyone where there is a suggestion of coerced treatment.  When people "die with their rights on" they are generally dismissed by courts and end up dead as the result of untreated mental illness.  Only psychiatrists are generally bound by these laws and not other physicians and that part is left out.

The other significant group left out of course are the antipsychiatrists and their considerable allies whose raison d'etre is basically to bash psychiatrists and make them look bad.  That group frequently uses the term overmedicalization and pretends that there has not been decades of legislation to protect the civil rights of the mentally ill.  She is patronising in suggesting that "most psychiatrists" recognize "peer support, structured activities, psychotherapy, employment assistance, and case management" might be useful -  ignoring essentially a century of research by psychiatrists on these elements of treatment.  It also ignores the truth that every psychiatrist knows and that is - people recover and people with severe illnesses recover.  I don't need a recovery movement to tell me that.  I have people walking up to me on the street who I treated decades ago who tell me that they are married, they have children, and they are working.  Despite that severe shortcoming, I give her credit for pointing out how recovery proponents "twist data to advance their agenda".  There is currently a lot of twisted data out there.

She ends the first discussion with commentary on whether a living will for treatment of psychiatric disorders, innovations like a "one-time autonomy violation for forced treatment", or civil commitment as usual is the best approach to forced treatment of severe mental illness.  That assumes that some innovation is necessary and that it will be universally applied.  Both assumptions are incorrect.  It is possible these days to look at the editorial pages of any major medical journal and of course the non-medical media and read endless suggestions about how "the system" of medical care should be changed.  The reality is that there is a loose system of medical care and for psychiatric care the system is non existent except in the minds of antipsychiatrists.  As far as I can tell the only thing wrong with mental health law is that it is subjectively interpreted and that interpretation is clearly affected by the attitudes of attorneys and judges and the resources of the county that is financially responsible for treatment.  That skews undertreatment more severely to the counties with fewer resources.  There is nothing wrong with the law as it is written.  Civil rights are protected and the decision about rights is made by the legal system and not psychiatrists or physicians.

The second article in this series (2) is focused on the mortality gap between persons with mental illness and those without.  Unlike recent authors Rosenbaum points out that the problem was first identified by a psychiatrist in 1932, long before there were any effective treatments or treatments that allegedly cause medical complications.  She almost avoids the accusation of some recent extremists that psychiatrists and psychiatric treatment are responsible for this increased mortality rate but does bring that point up.  Nobody can argue that a lot of this mortality is based on pessimism in dealing with the mentally ill.  I can still recall the obsessing about the decision go to smoke-free inpatient psychiatric units.  One of the arguments is that it would lead to much more aggression among patients and toward staff.  The  other argument was that smoking was "all they had" and it should not be taken away from "them."  Both arguments were advanced by trained mental health staff and are extremely demeaning.  It is not surprising that patients with mental illness have lower rates of guideline recommended care or disease altering interventions.  I have contacted many primary care physicians who were surprised to hear that their patient was still alive.  I have also found myself in the position of treating people with sustained very high blood pressures or people who were actively bleeding because the patient was refusing treatment.  The only advice I got from consultants was to call them back when something bad happened and in some cases it did.

The medical rather than psychiatric assessment of capacity to consent is discussed.  A study is presented that shows  that on a typical medical service 40% of patients lacked capacity to consent and the treatment team was aware of only 25% of those cases.  This implicit consent on medical and surgical services is widespread.  It is generally questioned only in the case of high risk procedures or if a patient illogically refuses routine care.  In hospitals with psychiatric consultation-liaison services - they are typically consulted with the question.   Rosenbaum suggests that in contested situations forced treatment results in brutal seclusion, restraint and forced medication.  That is an unlikely outcome in these situations.  Most people no matter how delusional agree to care if a judge orders it or they realize that just leaving is not an option.  The suggestion is made that more time and training for capacity to consent evaluations be considered.  That is not going to happen.  There is a reason that people avoid going into psychiatry.  Talking to patients and making these assessments is one of them.  And there is no way that hospitalists are ever going to have the time it takes to do this job in addition to their medical evaluations.  It is just another psychiatric resource rationed out of the system.

Rosenbaum concludes with a valentine to integrated care models.  She has access to some of the few internists who are adept are treating people with severe mental illness, including one internist who specializes in it.  The recent MGH Case Reports have discussed similar models.  The main model that was invented in 1974 by Len Stein, MD, Mary Anne Test, MSW and  others is never mentioned.  Since that time there are ACT teams that coordinate medical care for people with severe mental illnesses and help them stay healthy outside of hospitals.  As a psychiatrist trained in these community psychiatry interventions there was nothing about patient care in these three articles that was news to me.  There are plenty of psychiatrists trained in these interventions but very few settings to implement them.  That is because the rationed care approach has split psychiatric care off from managed care organizations and placed it under the purview of the state - usually as a way to justify shutting down state hospital bed capacity.   In states where the resource becomes state-run managed care poor outcomes can be expected to follow.  Since ACT treatment was originally focused on deinstitutionalization and quality of life it is easy to dismiss based on typical cost effectiveness arguments.  I can still remember Len Stein showing us the reason why ACT was invented.  It was a single slide showing a gymnasium sized room full of cots that were placed edge to edge.  The patients were all men wearing the same uniforms off to one side.  His question to the residents was whether it was better to help all of those men live independently or let them live in those state hospital conditions?  Unlike today - incarceration and homelessness were not acceptable options.      

The final article in the series suggests that inaction on the part of physicians in addressing the problem of medical illness in people with severe mental illness is a result of learned helplessness.  That refers to a well known animal model of depression where test animals are subjected to some insurmountable stressor and generally give up and stop trying.  That model alone provides an interesting disconnect between psychiatrists and the rest of medicine.  Since the days of German asylums, psychiatrists have wanted to talk to their severely ill patients - even before there were any effective treatments.  That drive is one of the most  compelling reasons for medical students to go into psychiatry in the first place.  I don't think that properly trained psychiatrists view these problems as hopeless situations, even though some of the inpatient units they work on are clearly repositories for problems that other physicians consider hopeless.

I have no problem at all talking with anyone who has a severe psychiatric problem, understanding them, and discussing treatment options for both their psychiatric and medical problems.  I have no problem understanding that the only reason I am the one offering help is a matter of genetics and good luck.

Any psychiatrist that I know can do that.      


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA



References:

1: Rosenbaum L. Liberty versus Need - Our Struggle to Care for People with Serious Mental Illness. N Engl J Med. 2016 Oct 13;375(15):1490-1495. PubMed PMID: 27732817.

2:  Rosenbaum L.  Closing the Mortality Gap - Mental Illness and Medical Care.  N Engl J Med. 2016 Oct 20; 375 (16): 1585- 1589.

3:  Rosenbaum L. Unlearning Our Helplessness - Coexisting Serious Mental and Medical Illness. N Engl J Med. 2016 Oct 27;375(17):1690-1694. PubMed PMID:27783917.

The Ethical Climate

I thought that I would comment on the recent Legislative Auditor's Report (LAR) entitled "A Clinical Drug Study at the University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry: The Dan Markingson Case Special Review".   This review focused primarily on ethical and conflict-of-interest requirements in laws, policies, and guidelines rather than the clinical care given.

I felt compelled to comment on this report for several reasons.  First and foremost I am a Minnesota psychiatrist and I practice psychiatry.  That gives me first hand knowledge and experience in several nuances of the report that will be obvious in my commentary.  Second, I have an interest in quality psychiatric care and research.  Third, I have no conflicts of interest to report in this matter.  I have an appointment in the University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry largely through my teaching of medical students and residents at a peripheral campus.  My primary affiliation in terms of residency training was the Hennepin-Regions program not affiliated with the University.  The last resident I was involved in supervising was from that program and over one year ago.  Teaching has always been considered to be a requirement of my work without any additional compensation.  Like practically all physicians my actual source of income was productivity-based defined as the number of patients I see.  I have not received a check from the University of Minnesota since I was a resident there in 1984.  I have no conflicts of interest with regard to any industry and encourage anyone to try to find me on the Big Pharma database.

My 23 years of working in an acute care setting in this state uniquely qualifies me to address issues involving civil commitment, stays of commitment, and competency to consent.  There are literally a handful of people with those qualifications in the state and I know most of them. I have also been a Peer Review Organization Reviewer in both Minnesota and Wisconsin and have experience on Human Subjects Committees, Institutional Review Boards, and Pharmacy and Therapeutic Committees for both hospitals and major healthcare organizations.  As far as I know,  I may be the only psychiatrist in the state with that combination of experience.  I list these qualifications for two reasons: they are immediately relevant to this review and they also speak to the comment from the Board of Medical Practice about how they retain their consultants.  I have offered to be their consultant on two occasions and they did not even acknowledge that I had applied.

I also need to preface my remarks to say that I have no knowledge of this case other than what is reported in the documents that I am commenting on.  There is a lack of original documents such as the FDA report that was mentioned in the LAR report.  A search on the FDA web site revealed only a PowerPoint document that ended with a description of different types of competency.  I know none of the people involved and have no working relationships with them.  I have no relatives or business associates with those relationships.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the reason for this report and investigations and that is the death of Dan Markingson.  Of all physicians, psychiatrists have the lowest threshold for the prevention of patient death.  Nobody is supposed to ever die while they are under our care.  We are the only physicians who are supposed to make an assessment of patient risk every time we see that person.  I am reviewing reports and conclusions that are far removed from the original event.  I am acutely aware of the shock to the family that occurs with these events and the effort that it takes to try to prevent them.  I want to be very clear that I am not trying to second guess or offend anybody in this report.  After reviewing hundreds or thousands of hospital records, I am fully aware of the fact that records are an inadequate substitute for the events as they actually occurred and that reviewing events in a retroscope generally changes everything.  I am also acutely aware of the fact that in the case of severe mental illness, you may only get one chance to do things correctly and the right way may be very unclear.


1.  The facts of the case are the facts of the case:

The concerns about "transparency" don't make any sense to me.  I don't think that the material facts of this case have changed since the outset.  Any time a suicide occurs in the state of Minnesota that triggers a coroner's investigation.  That coroner or investigators from the coroner's office get in contact with the doctors involved in treating the patient.  In this case there was also a malpractice case that was settled out of court, but prior to settlement this would have produced an exhaustive amount of information and detail and in a malpractice proceeding, details and opinions are gathered that are most unfavorable to the treating physicians.  The only persistent arguments in this case involves what was disclosed and when and the manner in which it was disclosed.  Many of the disclosures themselves were far from the original events and did not involve the principle parties.  It is clear from the Legislative Auditor's Report (LAR), that for the bulk of their report they read existing reports and made determinations about the adequacy of those reports and whether or not they agreed with the authors of those reports.  In some cases they submitted questions to the treating psychiatrist and interviewed the head of the Institutional Review Board.  The bulk of the report is focused on the University's Board of Regents and responses from the two past Presidents of the University in this matter.  They are basically accused of being : "...defensive, insular, and unwilling to accept criticism about the Markingson case either from within or outside the University."

2.  The Board of Medical Practice:

There should be no doubt at all that the Board of Medical Practice (BMP) is the supreme authority for physician investigation and discipline in the state.  There should be no doubt that it also has the lowest threshold for proceeding with action against any physician in the state.  The notion that in this case they were unduly influenced by a consultant with conflicts of interest is problematic.  The Executive Director of the BMP at the time of this investigation was an attorney and the remaining staff are state employees who have been investigating physicians for decades.

The process of how those investigations typically go is also instructive.  Any person in the state can make a complaint against a physician for any reason.  That triggers a letter from the BMP to that physician demanding that they personally respond and send all of the relevant records in 2 weeks or risk disciplinary action.  Once the physician response and records are obtained the BMP looks at all of the available data and determines whether any action is taken on the complaint.  They do not assess the merit of the complaint or screen complaints. They provide no safeguards for the privacy of the physician being investigated.  As a result there are thousands of complaints that are thoroughly investigated but never acted on.  Complaints are technically dismissed without action but all of the data is collected and kept on file in case there are future complaints.  The physician is notified about whether or not they are in violation of the Medical Practice Act or not.  The BMP is also insulated from political influence.   Board Members are appointed by the Governor but after that are not accountable to any politicians.

Dismissing a BMP investigation because a consultant has a conflict of interest seems to miss the mark to me.  Any physician in the state knows that of all of the possible investigations the BMP is the most rigorous and certainly carries more real weight and consequences for their career than any other professional investigation in the state.  The threshold here should be does the BMP have a conflict of interest?


3.  The Legislative Auditor's Report represents a point of view:

The document strikes me as being less than neutral.  The lack of neutrality starts with the description of a medication as a "powerful drug".  Where does a statement like that come from in a document put together by nonphysicians?  I have prescribed as much risperidone as anyone and don't consider it to be a "powerful drug".  In fact, most descriptions of a psychiatric medication that start like that are written by people who either don't know much about medication or are going to start talking about psychiatric medications or psychiatrists from a particular point of view and generally one that is not favorable.  The news media picked up on a letter from former Governor Arne Carlson and this report and in both cases characterized them as "blasting" various elements of the University.  Gov. Carlson's letter is mentioned in this report.

In the discussions of the issue of competency to consent to research, the opinion of the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Mental Retardation figures prominently as well as the efforts of the Minnesota Legislature to ban committed patients from pharmaceutical research.  They also apparently tried to ban patients under a stay of commitment (similar to this specific case) but did not because:

"......National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota objected. According to a press account, the organization contended that “mentally ill patients benefit from experimental drugs or treatments when traditional therapy fails them.”

I think that a lot of people reading the report, might miss that important fact in the fine print.  In other words, the premier advocacy organization for patients and families with severe mental illnesses, did not want patients on stays of commitment to be banned from research.

It seems fairly clear to me that the LAR, doubts anything that Dr. Olsen has to say about the lack of financial incentives for him to enroll patients into the study.  They suggest that there may be more to it, but it should be easy to investigate.  I would think that the salaries of University employees are public record.  There does not seem to be a similar level of skepticism applied to anything that supports their main contentions.    

4.  This is an adversarial proceeding:

That should be evident but the various critics and commentators write like they are unaware of it.  When you take that perspective you grant yourself the tone of an ultimate moral authority.  There is no reason for considering any facts that contradict your facts.  There is no reason for considering any other point of view.  An attorney who was representing the University at the time was quoted and then criticized for omissions.  I thought that was standard and accepted behavior of attorneys.  Moreover in any adversarial process in the US,  I would expect one party to make the other party look as bad as possible and the party on the defensive to try to make themselves look as good as possible.  I would further speculate that at some point before the malpractice lawsuit that lawyers were telling just about everyone involved what to say or more probably not to say anything.  To criticize those comments as being "misleading" or the fact that people on the defensive in a legal case are "unwilling to discuss it" seems more than a little disingenuous to me.  All semblance of honest exchange generally evaporates with civil legal involvement and the decision to decide things on the "facts" of the case - potentially in a courtroom proceeding.  Saying that somehow those attitudes will drastically change after a lawsuit has been settled would also be disingenuous.  I know that are new approaches suggested in how these emotionally charged situations can be handled including acknowledging that mistakes had been made.  I wonder if any of the authors of those articles have ever been in a situation where there has been an unexpected death of their patient, where the expectation is that patient should not die even though they are in a much higher mortality group than their peers, and where at various points in their career they will be in contact with peers who can claim that they have never lost a patient?  Can you make any adequate decision at all in that state of mind?  I would suggest that you cannot and you will not be able to as long as the emotional turmoil continues.


5.  The issue of competency in the State of Minnesota:

One of the main points of contention in the articles in this case is whether Mr. Markingson was competent to consent to participate in a research project and whether that consent and his continuing cooperation was coerced rather than voluntary consent.  Numerous authors in the documents do not seem to recognize who is considered competent to consent in the State of Minnesota.  From the Minnesota Statute 253B.23 Subd 2:


"Subd. 2.Legal results of commitment status. (a) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter and in sections 246.15 and 246.16, no person by reason of commitment or treatment pursuant to this chapter shall be deprived of any legal right, including but not limited to the right to dispose of property, sue and be sued, execute instruments, make purchases, enter into contractual relationships, vote, and hold a driver's license. Commitment or treatment of any patient pursuant to this chapter is not a judicial determination of legal incompetency except to the extent provided in section 253B.03, subdivision 6."

In the interest of space considerations, I would invite any reader to click on the link to 253B.03.Subd 6. to read about the exceptions for medical care.  It should be clear from reading that statute that committed patients are competent consenters and that there is a hierarchy of substituted consent. There also seems to be confusion about the issue of civil commitment and court ordered antipsychotic medication with competency.  This is a common problem in acute care psychiatric settings when a committed patient needs an acute medical treatment.  These patients are considered to be competent to make these decisions.  In the case where their opinion agrees with the medical or surgical consultant there are no problems.  In the case where there is an acute life threatening problem like bleeding and they disagree the issue of competency comes into play.  In the State of Minnesota the hierarchy of substituted consent is problematic in practice.  Absent interested family members it requires an additional and separate hearing from the civil commitment hearings.  It also generally requires that the patient or family retain private legal representation for that purpose.  That creates a hurdle significant enough in most cases to prevent the timely provision of acute medical and surgical care.

I have heard the argument that the University was concerned about being "right" rather than doing the right thing.  That seems rhetorical to me.  As a physician you have no choice but to follow the laws in the state.  The issue was also commented on the LAR report by judges on pages 5, 8 , and 28 (specific judges in the case were not named).  The judges in all cases described Mr. Markingson as competent or stating that there was no evidence that he was not competent.  I really cannot think of more compelling evidence in favor of competency to make decisions than a decision by a judge hearing the actual case.

On the issue of the consent form.  I have not seen the consent form.  I have only seen a form that was a checklist of sorts to determine competency.  The LAR report includes highlights of reports from two different psychologists that may have implications for competency.  Psychiatrists are trained to assess patients for general and specific competence.  General competency has to do with the ability to function and handle one's affairs on a day to day basis.  Gutheil and Appelbaum suggest that this includes a mix of current awareness, an ability to assess the current facts of a situation, an ability to adequately process risk/benefit information, and day-to-day functioning (3).  Specific competence is more focused and the person needs to be able to elaborate their thought process and demonstrate that they are reasoning in a logical manner.  The same authors have an action guide (p. 255) about what needs to be down to complete either type of competency evaluation.  The bottom line is that it takes time and I doubt that any antipsychotic trial would use that standard.  If they did there would be two problems.  The first would be reliability problems between psychiatrists doing those evaluations.  The second would be that there would be a significant number of people screened who would not pass the evaluation.  I was not able to find any literature looking at this issue (that is rigorous competency evaluations in patients with psychosis who were research candidates).   A more objective evaluation of general competency could be done, and the approach to specific competency for consent to research needs a lot more work.  These competency issues are really no different for patient enrolled in research projects outside of the field of psychiatry.  A good general validated approach to the issue of specific competency to consent to pharmaceutical research would benefit that entire field.

That said, as an investigator I cannot recall any consent form that did not clearly say that the research subject could quit at any time and that their decision to quit would not in any way affect current or future medical care that they would receive in the health care system.  That is all part of a standard research consent.  


6.  Pharmaceutical research and "evidence-based" medicine in general:  

The mechanics of the project are familiar to me from my participation on research projects as an investigator.  Practically all studies have research coordinators that do not have any medical credentials.  They are necessary because of the sheer amount of paperwork involved in drug trials. The research coordinators are the representatives of the study to families and on the other end of the spectrum they are responsible for the protocol paperwork that is submitted to the FDA.  There appears to be no uniform qualification for these research coordinators and it does not appear to be career path work.

Research now appears to reflect clinical practice and that is not a good thing,  In some of the research that I participated in in the 1980s, the initial phase of antipsychotic trials were done for a specified period of time in an inpatient unit.  The thinking was that disrupting a patient's maintenance medication could lead to acute exacerbations of psychosis.  It certainly did that in the research that I was involved with.  Even in the case of known medications, dose equivalency is always an issue when changing from one medication to another.

In this case the study involved a trial of medications (quetiapine, risperidone, and olanzapine) that had already been approved by the FDA.  The question of whether that study was even necessary could have been answered by any acute care inpatient psychiatrist.  By the time of the original study I had already treated hundreds of patients with all of the study medications in acute care inpatient settings.  Looking at one of the publications, the authors describe a sample size of 400 patients (4).  Like most acute care psychiatrists I have treated multiples of that number and there were no surprising results from this study.  At some level the idea that all of these double blind studies using human subjects needs to be challenged.  It comes from the highest levels of so-called "evidence-based" medicine.  Reading thorough the Cochrane Collaboration about any antipsychotic drug (or practically any medications for any indication) - you will see the same conclusions - inadequate methodology and further study is necessary.  That is not true and at this point I would see those conclusions as approaching the level of a fallacy.  Do I really need a large multi-center study to tell me that people who do not respond to a medication or don't tolerate it may not want to take it?  That information is not only useless to me, but I have already made the necessary changes a lot faster than any research protocol can change during day to day clinical care.  Today's so-called "evidence based" world doesn't give clinicians on the front lines nearly enough credit.  If I had to wait for the blessing of the Cochrane Collaboration I would be incapable of doing my work.

Given the effort required to design and run these trials and the difficulty in recruiting patients is the research question in this study that important?  I would suggest that it is not as evidenced by the fact that physicians like me in clinical practice already know the answers and we are a lot faster on our feet than "evidence-based medicine".  This is currently problem at the national level and it is not just a local problem in Minnesota.  It also has significant political implications.

I pointed out this issue in an e-mail to one of the top epidemiologists in the world a few months ago - so far no response.


7.  The care of people with severe mental illnesses in general:

The outline that I provided on the elements of good psychiatric care as advice to residents still applies here.  There are some additional considerations that can only be honed by years of experience in these settings.  Foremost among then is recognizing the life threatening nature of severe mental illness.  A lot of people with no direct responsibility and concern for the patient's well being do not have this concern or deal with it in the abstract.  We live in a culture where there is not only a bias against this idea but even the idea that mental illnesses exist.  It should not be surprising that people find it difficult to accept the idea that severe mental illnesses exist,  but also that they represent a high level of risk to the individual.  Even people who should know better have a hard time keeping that latter concept in clear focus.  When I do an assessment, I am looking for anything possible that will allow me to look at future risk and what I can do to minimize it.  But even then, we currently lack a technology that can produce the degree of certainty that most of us would like.  The most important aspect of this kind of care is open communication with the patient and as many friends and family as possible.  It is not a 9 to 4 job.  The lines of communication with the clinician or physicians covering for them need to be open at all times.  Any acute changes need to be carefully assessed.  In this age where people with severe problems are dismissed from emergency departments, there has to be a plan for respite care or emergency hospitalization that will work.   In the ideal settings those places need to be hospitable and supportive.  

The ethical climate:

Blackburn describes some characteristics of ethical climates:

"Human beings are ethical animals.  I do not mean that we naturally behave particularly well nor that we are endlessly telling each other what to do.  But we grade and evaluate, and compare and admire, and claim and justify.  We do not just "prefer" this or that, in isolation.  We prefer that our preferences are shared; we turn them into demands on each other.  Events endlessly adjust our sense of responsibility, our guilt and shame and our sense of worth of our own and that of others.  We hope for lives whose story leaves us looking admirable; we like our weaknesses to be hidden and deniable....." (p. 5)

Ethical climates are interesting.  An ethical climate can lead to the establishment of a totalitarian regime or a rich humanitarian culture.  They basically generate their own reality.  The most read post on this blog was about the issue of conflict of interest and it basically has to do with an attempt to construct or continue a certain ethical climate.  Various ethical environments are applied more selectively to psychiatry than any other medical speciality.   In this investigation I can easily argue selective attention to some of the elements in my above commentary and ignoring other elements creates a particular ethical environment despite the fact that the authors seem to agree with the main points of some of the investigations and reports that they attempt to discredit.

In that process a lot is lost in the translation - not the least of which is that we have a report that seeks to establish the Office of the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities as a monitor for drug studies in the Department of Psychiatry when there is no evidence that they are equipped to do the job.  This is apparently being done because of the way the administrations reacted to and disclosed various investigations into the original incident.  Further, the same report has disenfranchised the state's primary agency in charge of investigating and disciplining physicians based on a conflict of interest that was fully disclosed to the BMP before the consultant was hired.

It all comes down to the question: "Is this a fair analysis of the problem or is this a case of an ethical environment being engineered to produce a certain result?"

This is more than a moot question given the concrete recommendations of the report.


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA




1:  Legislative Auditor's Report entitled "A Clinical Drug Study at the University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry: The Dan Markingson Case Special Review".  March 29, 2015.

2:  Simon Blackburn.  Being Good - A Short Introduction to Ethics.  Oxford University Press, New York, 2001.

3:  Thomas G. Gutheil, Paul S. Appelbaum.  Clinical Handbook of Psychiatry and The Law, 3rd ed.  Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, Philadelphia, 2000.

4:  Perkins DO, Gu H, Weiden PJ, McEvoy JP, Hamer RM, Lieberman JA. Comparison of Atypicals in First Episode study group. Predictors of treatment discontinuation and medication nonadherence in patients recovering from a first episode of schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, or schizoaffective disorder: a randomized, double-blind, flexible-dose, multicenter study. J Clin Psychiatry. 2008 Jan;69(1):106-13. PubMed PMID: 18312044.

The Spectrum Of Caring About Medication Information

With over half of Americans on prescription drugs and many on significant polypharmacy, not a lot is known about the decisions to take a medication or the associated informed consent issues.  There is always a question about whether a productivity based, low quality medical environment will result in more prescriptions or less.  There is the ever present marketing issue and regulatory decisions by the FDA that often seem to be market based.  The CDC came out with recent data on this phenomenon today including some excellent information on potential overprescribing - see the antidepressant and antibiotic slides (click to enlarge any graphic).

I thought I would look at how medication information seems to be used by patients.  I  try to condense this issue down to a graphic to capture what I think are the essential elements to consider in terms of the information requirements that people need to make decisions about medications.  There is a full spectrum of considerations from people who don't want to know anything about a medication to those who want as close to a medical level of knowledge as possible.  The one area of this table that I know for certain is that we all start out in a common place and that is not wanting to take a medication at all.   As I have pointed out here several times, searching for a medication that will work for a problem is often fueled by desperation.  Medication side effects and a lack of efficacy of medications is common.   The graphic is based on my direct observations about medications and how people decide that they will use them.  I eliminated the scenarios that involve addiction for the purpose of a more simplified scenario, but could develop that if anyone is interested. (click to enlarge)

In 30 years of practice I have encountered all of the scenarios listed in the above table at one point or another.  As an intern on the Internal Medicine service, I recall a young man who I had just admitted to the ICU for acute asthma.  We gave him the usual glucocorticoids, theophylline, and albuterol nebulizers.  Within and hour he wanted to leave.  His respiratory status was slightly improved at the time but my resident, attending, and I did not think it was a good idea.  He signed out AMA with the complaint that is was just too boring to stay in a hospital despite his flare up of asthma and continuou wheezing.

I have also had plenty of experience at the other end of the spectrum.  They are generally complicated situations involving treating physicians or other professionals or the relatives of professionals, people with severe complicated problems that have not responded to any of the usual therapies, people taking highly interactive or toxic medications, or people with personality structures (innate or acquired) that require a lot of information or the idea that better decisions are predicated on the maximum amount of information.  Many of these folks also have ideas about physicians and expectations of how much time they are able to spend with physicians.  

If I had to guess about the distribution of people I have talked with most of them would probably lie in column 5 (from the left).  The distribution of people on both ends of the table is low.  I think that the most important aspect of this spectrum for a physician is recognizing the approach that the patient is taking and trying to complement that.  That involves being more available to people who don't want a lot of information up front in the event that they have experiences with the medication that they might want to ask about.  Even in the case of refusal of medication, people change their mind especially when dealing with illnesses that are clearly disruptive and potentially life-threatening.  Some people may come back and demand to know why nobody forced them to take a medication in the first place even when they refused it initially.  

Television ads for new medications seem to take a high pressure approach to column 6 with a very rapid speech about severe and potentially life threatening complications.  The ads obviously lack depth for the person described in this column, but they have a degree of transparency about severe effects.  I would wonder if a person speaking more slowly about the side effects would have more impact.

The other lesson that is often lost is that there is no correct way to consider information for an informed consent decision about medication.  Physicians consider rational thinkers to look at the probabilities of the risks versus the benefits and make a decisions.  That is what much of the medication information educational material is based on.  In fact, medication decisions are very personalized.  The response of the population in general does not dictate the response of the individual.  The affected person may have no interest at all in a new medication that is offered but they may recall detailed information about their response or the response of their family members to medications.  They may also have had very adverse experiences with medications, physicians, and other medical personnel.  People develop medical comorbidities at different rates and that will also be an important aspect of the decision making process.  The only decision-maker who is really problematic in this table is a person who takes an empirical approach and then does not report any side effects thinking that they will "get used to" the medication.  I think a lot of those ideas may originate with physicians who have inflexible approaches because in my experience people rarely get used to side effects and some side effects are harbingers of potentially severe problems.

There are also important questions about the overprescribing issue.  In at least some of those cases, physicians are often dealing with patients who may be receiving information like: "You don't have signs of a bacterial infection" but processing it as: "I believe in antibiotics and need to take antibiotics to get better".  

I think this is all an important aspect of the informed consent process.  The informational aspects of informed consent need to include how much information a person is willing to consider is the first step.  The analysis of that data follows.

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA 

The Cure For Overprescribing

I  felt compelled to get this down because the continued wheel spinning on this subject is really starting to annoy me.  People are wringing their hands like they either don't know what to do or they angrily invoke some model that suggests a solution but not really.  The two common models invoked are the "medicalization" of society and the other is some sort of conspiracy (Big Pharma, psychiatry) to invent diagnoses and indications for prescribing medications in order for Big Pharma to make more money.  The recipients of all of the overprescribing are seen as hapless victims who never stood a chance in the face of the medicalization-conspiracy juggernaut.  All we have to do is stop the Big Pharma-monolithic psychiatry steamroller.

Some of the "solutions" to this dilemma are equally far fetched.  First of all lets say that any physicians affiliated with Big Pharma in any way need to report all of those connections.  There was recent evidence posted that this was not slowing down physician interest in these jobs - temporary or otherwise.  It is after all a free country and one where you have to make money to survive.  Physician compensation is dropping as the workload goes through the roof.  The reimbursement and hassle in psychiatry is so onerous that psychiatrists are the least likely speciality group to accept insurance.  Many physicians would like nothing better than to work for a pharmaceutical company.  So the lack of slowing down is certainly no surprise to me.  Those who are naive to the way transparency works probably thought that physicians would be too ashamed of their appearance of conflict of interest.  That is after all what we are talking about - an appearance of conflict of interest.  The prototype for transparency is the US Congress whose members blatantly take money from and provide easy access to the same industries that they regulate.  If transparency doesn't slow down Congress, why would it slow down physicians who are often in positions where they are actually being paid for rendering a service to the company and there is no evidence of  quid pro quo.

Another solution is to isolate physicians and trainees from pharmaceutical company representatives and  promotional materials.  Probably some of the weakest research in the history of the world is the research that shows that pharmaceutical promotions and advertising influences physicians to prescribe drugs.  The only weaker research is that Maintenance of Certification measures are worth the time and effort.  Not only that but by now it should be pretty clear that throwing pharmaceutical reps to the curb has not diminished the overprescribing of just about anything.  Practically all of the over prescribed antibiotics right now are generics.  The same thing is true of the overprescribed benzodiazepines and antidepressants.  As far as I can tell most of the overprescribed opioids are the usual hydrocodone/oxycodone and acetaminophen preparations and 30 mg generic oxycodone tablets.  Pharmaceutical company detailing has nothing to do with why all of these drugs are overprescribed.  Every hospital and clinic has a Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee responsible for a formulary and they often have specific strategies to reduce costs associated with the most expensive drugs on that formulary.   I spent over a decade on two different P & T Committees.  I have never seen any member try to push through a drug - past about 20 physicians and PharmDs, based on a piece of pizza or a donut that a pharmaceutical rep gave them.  Even thinking that could happen is absurd.

What about the DSM-5 conspiracy?  What about the bereavement exclusion?  Won't that open up tens of millions of mourners to the hazards of antidepressant medications?  Only if their primary care physician is fairly clueless.  As I have previously posted psychiatrists have studied the problem and the solutions that Paula Clayton found 40 years ago are no different than today than they were then. It certainly is possible that treating rating scale results can increase antidepressant prescribing.  But that is currently considered state-of-the-art measurement based care by managed care organizations and some governments.  That is a clear force that facilitates overprescribing.

What about cognitive errors?  Do physicians really overprescribe because they lack the technical knowledge on how to prescribe?  I really doubt that is the problem.  I would cite the case of overprescribed antibiotics.  During my training and for many years after the Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy was considered definitive guidance for antibiotic therapy.  As HIV therapy increased in success and complexity an accompanying manual The Sanford Guide to HIV/AIDS Therapy came out.  Every medicine and surgery house officer and many staff counted on the microscopic type on these pages for definitive guidance on prescribing antibiotic and antiviral therapies.  It was just a question of identifying the pathogen, determining if the patient could tolerate the medication, and prescribing the drug as recommended.  So how is it possible that antibiotics are overprescribed?

So what are the real reasons for overprescribing?  The overprescribing literature extends back well over 20 years at this point.  Solutions are not readily found.  That literature generally comes down to particular class of drugs and the progress in that area.  I recently reviewed the REMS strategy to the current opioid problem and why I did not think that would work.  It really comes down to two things and neither of them has to do with a diagnosis or medicalization.  The first is that health care systems are currently set up to offer some type of test or pill as a solution to most problems.  At least when they are not claiming that they are responsible for your cradle-to-grave health and giving you a gym membership discount.  All of that goes out the window when you enter the clinic and have 5 or 10 minutes with a doctor.  In the case of mental health care, many of the conditions that present in primary care are better treated with psychotherapy than with medications, but most primary care physicians are not trained in psychotherapy.  Some are trained in motivational interviewing, but to suggest that will be successful in many of their patients is really an insult to the problems facing them.  Primary care physicians see patients with very difficult refractory problems.  These patients will see a specialist once or twice and then go back to their primary care physician for care with the same difficult problems.  Not overprescribing in many of these situations is really a question of limit setting rather than motivational interviewing.  That is especially true if the prescription is a drug that is addicting or can cause an altered state of consciousness.

The other issue is that systems of care these days, are set to run on the concept of customer satisfaction rather than excellent medical care.  The idea that a customer may not get what he or she wants is anathema to the MBAs that are currently in charge of the system.  The trickle down effect is that the physician who is setting limits on benzodiazepine, sedative hypnotics, stimulants, or opioid prescriptions will not get good customer satisfaction ratings and their compensation and role in the organization may be diminished as a result.  Health care systems that allow patients to rate their doctors on satisfaction ratings without considering that patients might be dissatisfied with reality should be held to task.

The second factor is the physician himself.  How many physicians have thought about all of the unconscious factors that lead to their overprescribing?  My guess is not many.  The problem of overprescribing is viewed as an informational deficit.  It is believed for example that teaching physicians all about chronic pain and the pharmacology of opioids will somehow reduce opioid overprescribing.  I don't see how anyone can come to that conclusion.  All physicians are taught pharmacology and most have experience prescribing opioids.  That approach seems as naive to me as the Joint Commission pain initiative in the year 2000.  Physicians need to determine for themselves why they are uncomfortable not giving a patient a prescription for whatever they are asking for.   I have heard a wide variety of reasons in my career and most of them have nothing to do with the indications for the drug.  The majority had to do with the physician believing that they could do something to alleviate the patient's distress and that wish was independent of what the diagnosis or indication for the drug was at the time.   The new variation on that theme is that physicians are somehow capable of overcoming the effects of a chronically impoverished environment, severe ongoing adversity, and either an inability or a resistance to change by prescribing a drug.  That is basically the same rationale that people use when they are addicted to drugs and alcohol.  They hope to use something to block out reality for a few hours.  Overprescribing will not change that.  The other interesting consideration is that the diagnosis is irrelevant.  It is tacked on afterwards for a prescription that is written for no real medical reason.

There needs to be better standards for determining what constitutes overprescribing and what does not.  I recently corresponded with the lead author of a paper looking at the issue overuse of health care services in the US (see reference 2).  The authors conclude that while there is ample evidence of overuse, the scope of research is limited.  Some of this is due to difficulties with definition and that would apply to the issue of overprescribing psychiatric medications.  The studies that frequently make the headlines have significant methodological problems.  A study I recently posted used two different data sources to conclude that antidepressants were being overprescribed.  The studies need to be more than prescription, survey and administrative data.  Those studies will necessarily be labor intensive and expensive.

In the end, I always come back to the informed consent model.  If the patient is competent to consent in most cases the physician and patient can have detailed conversation about the prescription including the risks and benefits and what it would like to go without it.  These are usually lengthy conversations.  These are tough decisions based on the fact that nobody wants to take medications regularly or see doctors for the purpose of continuing medications.  My own personal experience is consistent with what my patients have told me over the years - some change is desperately needed and that is often how the medication is viewed.  In that context people will often try medications with significant toxicity.  The medicines advertised on TV with death as a stated side effect are cases in point.  But no matter how much information passes, the physician needs to be the ultimate judge of whether the medication is a good idea.

It can never be a decision that is taken lightly.          

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

1: Gordon M, Catchpole K, Baker P. Human factors perspective on the prescribing behavior of recent medical graduates: implications for educators. Adv Med Educ Pract. 2013 Jan 10;4:1-9. doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S40487. Print 2013. PubMed PMID: 23745094

2: Korenstein D, Falk R, Howell EA, Bishop T, Keyhani S. Overuse of health care services in the United States: an understudied problem. Arch Intern Med. 2012 Jan 23;172(2):171-8. doi: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.772. Review. PubMed PMID: 22271125


Supplementary 1:  I was going to add a detailed explanation of my bubble diagram to this post but it is too long.  Look for a separate post about the bubbles.

Supplementary 2:  An updated higher resolution bubble diagram is located at this link.