Title: Should Mental Health Be a Primary-Care Doctor’s Job? | The New Yorker
Headings: Should Mental Health Be a Primary-Care Doctor’s Job?
Should Mental Health Be a Primary-Care Doctor’s Job?
Video From The New Yorker

Content: I tell them, “You deserve better.” I’m a primary-care internist, and my expertise is broader than it is deep. I manage high blood pressure and cholesterol but refer people with heart attacks to cardiologists; I perform Pap tests and prescribe birth-control pills but send pregnant women to obstetricians; and I often diagnose, but never treat, cancer. With mental illness, though, the limits of my role are less clear. I’m comfortable helping people get through life’s more common emotional challenges, like divorce, retirement, disappointing children. If you’re hearing voices, or if you walk into my office and announce that you’ve decided to kill yourself, as someone did not long ago, I know exactly what to do: escort you to a psychiatrist. But what about the lawyer who’s having trouble meeting deadlines and wants medication for attention-deficit disorder?