Psychiatry's Drift Away from Medicine
RICHARD A. SCHWARTZ M.D.1
1 Department of Psychiatry, Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Cleveland Clinic Educational Foundation, 9500 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44106
The author discusses a number of trends in current psychiatric theory and practice that he believes have tended to separate psychiatry from its traditional medical orientation. These include an overly broad concept of psychiatric illness, overinvolvement by psychiatrists in nonmedical service programs, delegation of diagnosis and treatment to nonmedical personnel, and physically separate facilities for psychiatric and general medical services. Believing that these trends are having adverse consequences, he makes some specific suggestions that will enable psychiatry to resume closer ties with the rest of medicine.
