Since I have been called a "dirty rotten guild monopolist" on my own blog, I thought I should try to live up to the name.
Psychologists have been trying to get prescribing privileges in various states and they have been consistently shot down. I can understand that psychologists would like to prescribe, given the difficulties of finding psychiatrists and the low regard they have for primary care physicians. But I did take a pharmacology course and prescribe something at least ten times a day (well less, but that's closer to the national average).
If a patient experiences an adverse event, I am in a position to treat or direct the patient accordingly. Enough people dump on me as it is. If it's your adverse event, don't refer the patient back to me. On the other hand, if you think your patient really needs a medication, I'll take your recommendation, if you ask me first.
My opinion; to understand why psychologists would like to prescribe rather than foster the primary care relationships they should be supporting, just follow the money.
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I am in complete agreement. Psychologists, in their grandiosity, conflate the title "doctor" with being a real doctor. I believe that the push to gain prescribing priveleges has as much to do with the threats psychologists face, with respect to their monopoly over psychotherapy, from social workers and family therapists.In fact, simply pointing out to psychologists that the curriculum of study in clinical psychology is almost identical to the curriculum of study for Master's level clinicians, is guaranteed to elicit indignation from psychologists and angry denial. Cognitive dissonance is at work: having spent 3 more years (most of it in research) and thousands of dollars more on their educations than Master's level clinicians, its hard for psychologists to accept that they are licensed to do essentially what social workers and family therapists do (with the exception of psych testing). Add to this the similarities between managed care reimbursement for psychologists and Master's level practitioners, and the push by psychologists to prescribe meds can be seen in a new light. Complications like neuroleptic malignant syndrome and Serotonin syndrome require medical management by a trained physician.
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