Letters to the Editor
Re: Should Psychologists Be Granted Prescription Privileges? A Review of the Prescription Privilege Debate for Psychiatrists
Dear Editor:
The review paper on the subject of whether psychologists should be granted prescription privileges (1) should be ensconced in the annals of psychiatric literature as characterized by obfuscation rather than enlightenment, notwithstanding the statement at the very end of the article that “psychologists need not go beyond the boundaries of psychological practice to expand into new treatment areas”—a mere sop in an article meant to condition and somehow advance the untenable practice of prescribing privileges to psychologists.
It is certainly a truism that allowing psychologists to prescribe would widen the scope of their practice and that this profession’s accessibility to psychoactive medication would result in more people being “treated.”
This tautological argument flies in the face of common sense. Perhaps bartenders, barbers, and hairdressers should also be given limited prescription privileges and, in the case of barbers, the right to do trephining as well! According to the spurious argument that length of education is a rationale for allowing psychologists to prescribe, nuclear physicists should be given unlimited prescription privileges in all areas of medicine and to all and sundry.
When psychologists become physicians and psychiatrists and, as a result, are subject to the same rigorous discipline and curriculum of etiology and the assessment and treatment of diseases, then no reasonable body or person can deny them prescribing authority.
It appears somewhat ludicrous that an article of this nature would grace the pages of the Canadian Psychiatric Association’s journal when we are witnessing an evolution and revolution in psychiatry. Psychiatry is evolving into a truly scientific, neurobiological discipline that is deeply rooted in technological medicine and in rigorous medical scientific method.
Please leave philosophy to the philosophers, psychology to the psychologists, and yes, cheese to the cheese makers.
Reference
1. Lavoie KL, Fleet RP. Should psychologists be granted prescription privileges? A review of the prescription privilege debate for psychiatrists. Can J Psychiatry 2002;47:443–8.
Sam Sussman, PhD
London, Ontario
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