Pro-con: Should specially trained psychologists write prescriptions?
Victoria AdvocateFeb 06, 2017
And the number of psychiatrists in the Crossroads can be counted on one hand.
"It was really an all day thing," said the
To address a shortage of psychiatrists, State Rep.
Some psychologists are willing to step up, while their counterparts think this measure could be dangerous.
PRO: Psychologists could prescribe medication safely
The clinical psychologist behind House Bill 593 can tell the difference between a thyroid disorder and depression, which have similar symptoms.
That's why
"In all the states where psychologists have been prescribing and in the military, there have not been any malpractice suits," she said, "and that's a lot of years because the military has been prescribing for twenty-five."
Hall, the president-elect of the
HB 593 would not give psychologists the ability to prescribe opioids, which are not used to treat mental health disorders, she said.
And this isn't the first time the Legislature will be asked to decide whether specially trained psychologists should write prescriptions.
In 2003, State Rep.
Hall thinks this time will be different because the need is more urgent and on Texans' minds.
Burrows, who serves on the
Additionally, Hall thought efforts to attract psychiatrists to underserved areas by assisting them with their student loans were good, but didn't go far enough.
She estimates that if HB 593 were to pass, 125 psychologists would earn the privilege of writing prescriptions and be able to help people with mental illness living in underserved areas.
Hall earned a postdoctoral master's degree in clinical psychopharmacology in 2001. If HB 593 passes, she'd need to complete an additional year of training and ace an exam before she'd be eligible to write prescriptions.
"I think we have to be creative to find as many solutions as we can," Hall said. "Psychiatrists do good work, but there's just not enough of them, and the wait lists are too long. We're not trying to compete with psychiatrists at all. We know they're still going to have plenty of work."
Con:
Psychologists have different educational backgrounds from psychiatrists and that doesn't prepare them to write prescriptions, Dr.
Secrest has been a psychiatrist longer than he said he would care to admit, and the way he sees it, prescribing medication hasn't gotten any easier.
For example, Secrest recently had to answer a patient's question about whether taking Prozac would cause him to have an irregular heartbeat. The patient had a new pacemaker, and if the Prozac affected it, he could die.
Then, another patient taking medication for a mood disorder was bruising more easily. It took Secrest's years of medical training and consulting with other doctors for him to figure out the bruising was caused by combining the medication with aspirin, which the patient was taking for another condition, he said.
Although there's a shortage of psychiatrists, Secrest, who is on the faculty at UT Southwestern in
Another way to address the shortage is to expand the student loan repayment assistance program, said
Senate Bill 239 established the program in 2015. Back then, 199 of
In order to be eligible for the program, the mental health professional must provide services in one of those areas to patients on
Hansch also suggested making peer support services
Lastly, Hansch said, there are not enough psychiatric residency slots in the
Dr.
He's never accepted patients who had
Like Secrest, Lyman didn't think the criteria psychologists must meet under HB 593 to be able to write prescriptions was equivalent to a psychiatrist's training.
He also thought in states where psychologists can write prescriptions, such as
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