Look, I found Mitch, a classmate of mine from medical school, when he started to follow me on Twitter. Only I don't tweet (or I don't "emit tweets?" Sometimes I squawk, does that count?). I sent an email and while we were catching up, I invited Mitch to be a guest blogger.
Pharmaceuticals in the Information Age
It’s become a standard for me, when prescribing psychiatric medication, to ask patients if they intend to look it up on the internet. I think the internet is often a terrible place to go hunting for information. Either you’ll find a company sponsored site with happy faces, bells and whistles, or you’ll find disgruntled groups of patients denouncing the evils of one pill or another. The “impartial information” sites are frequently as toxic, especially for anxious patients, who can read through a comprehensive list of side effects, with little reference to their frequency or importance. And who knows if the information you’re finding is up to date? If a patient is paying to see me, it would make sense to bring his or her worries (Will my hair fall out?), concerns (Will this make me gain weight?) and fears (My friend took this and had a terrible reaction!) to me, not to the Web. If patients do want to Google their Rx’s, I ask them to send me whatever information they find which disturbs them. At least I can try to address the questions the internet has raised.
Even worse are television commercials for medications, which are unavoidable. I find that I need to watch at least some network TV just to keep up with what patients are seeing. How confusing to see such pained sufferers become spontaneously functional and cheery, while listening to the diabolical audio undercurrent of debilitating side effects. I know the messages are powerful; I frequently meet a new patient who comes in specifically because they saw a commercial for Abilify or Pristiq or something else during their favorite show. At least these drug mini-dramas do patients the courtesy of asking them to “ask their doctors.” Every patient is different; what works for someone, or causes side effects for someone else, is often an unknown. I find commercials send the message that THIS medicine will fix everyone.
Mitchell Newmark, M.D. is a psychiatrist, living and working in Manhattan, who is both a psychotherapist and psychopharmacologist, with a subspecialty in addictions.