Now It's the Cardiologists' Turn

People like to rag on psychiatry: we've got our own anti-psychiatry movement, and one of the biggest issues for these groups is that "psychiatry" (whoever our singular voice might be) misrepresented itself by saying there are chemical imbalances responsible for mental illness, when no precise imbalance has yet been identified.  We're not like internal medicine and it's sub-specialties where there are numbers and a cut-off for when you have diabetes, and when your cholesterol raises your risk of heart disease.  Those numbers are reportedly precise science, but, actually, those illnesses are defined like psychiatric disorders: by consensus of a bunch of people on a committee.  These days I follow the cardiology news with interest.  Today is the 6 month anniversary of my brother's death from coronary artery disease.  My brother did not know that his coronary arteries were quietly calcifying and by the cardiology predictors, he had no reason to believe he was at any imminent risk of death.  While he once had an elevated cholesterol level, he did what doctors recommend: he changed his eating habits, increased his exercise, and he died with wonderful numbers.  Never a smoker, the one clue that this might have happened was that our father also died of heart disease he didn't know he had, at a very young age. For a field where things are supposed to be so much more clear cut than psychiatry, cardiology also has it's camps.  There are those who ...
Source: Shrink Rap - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs