DEBATE
Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Class
Date
Introduction
In this assignment, the Understanding of emerging issues and relevant research will be rationally and critically demonstrated in the debate on either pros or cons of “allowing psychologists to prescribe medication.” Two critical dilemmas or the points related to either ethics or socio-cultural norms will be illustrated. The debate will be aimed at defending either position with compelling arguments and predictions for future trends and Selecting and applying relevant theoretical discussion and empirical evidence from professional, scholarly journals. Much Understanding will be portrayed by the emerging issue and of the research findings. Critically, the debate will display criticizing ability on aspects of emerging issues in a rational manner. Prospectively, the discussion will include critical dilemmas concerning the matter. Either position building will be displayed in the way I will defend my position with compelling propositions and predicted future trends. (Shahidullah, et al. 2018).
A psychologist is a person who has studied or studies normal and abnormal mental states, cognitive, perceptual, social, and emotional, behavior and processes by experimenting with and observing, interpreting, recording, and analyzing how individuals relate to one another and their surroundings. However, the field of psychologists is broad and diverse to discuss on this debate. On the other hand, medical prescription also, prescription medication or prescription medicine is often abbreviated Rx or ℞. The program in health care is implemented by either physicians or any other healthcare expert in the form of guidelines or instructions to govern the schedule plan of care for patients. The term has been used in medicine to refer to a doctor’s or any other healthcare provider’s written authorization for the sick to purchase a particular drug from a pharmacist. For the prescriptions to be validly accepted as a legal prescription, it has to be from a qualified herbalist, dentist, pharmacist, advanced practice nurse, veterinarian, psychiatrist, or physician who prescribed medication within the scope of practice treatments. This is regardless of whether such prescriptions have over-the-counter medicines or safeguarded treatments. (Schneider et al., 2019)
Now the debate is, “should psychologists be prescribe medication?” They should. Many developed states have considered it worthwhile. Recently Idaho became the sixth state to sanction its clinical psychologists to prescribe medications to the patients. Now, Mexico, Lowa, Louisiana, and Illinois have also permitted some psychologists to prescribe medications. “RxP” Is the prescriptive authority for psychologists in operation. (Liu et al., 2019)
“Permitting psychologists to prescribe medication for medal disorder has improved access to wider range of health services particularly in undeveloped and poorly served rural areas in developing countries where there is scarcity of psychiatrists,” explains American Psychological Association (APA) President Antonio Puente. He added that waiting to see a psychiatrist in northern Idaho can take as long as a whole year and three or four years in the Boise area, according to the Idaho Psychological Association’s research. (Patel et al.,2016)
Suicide rates are highest in the countries which are yet to authorize their psychologists to prescribe drugs as it had been the case with Idaho. Either RxP legislation decreases the cost to the patient because rather than seeking treatment from multiple providers (e.g., a psychologist for therapy and a psychiatrist or primary care provider for prescriptions), the patients can consolidate to a single provider medal health needs. In some countries, the Department of Defense Psychopharmacology Demonstration Project (PDP also trained their psychologists to prescribe psychotropic medications in health conditions impacting outcomes.
The need for authorizing the psychologists to prescribe the medication is well illustrated in the issue of recorded a few numbers of psychiatrists. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports showing the number of psychologists working in the US to be 167000. On the other side, BLS states that the number of psychiatrists to be only 275900. Either the National Council’s Medical Director Institute report indicates an ongoing shortage of psychiatrists, which has resulted in a health crisis. With this rate, the demand is outpacing the supply of psychiatrists as far as 15700 by 2023.
A review of prescribing psychologists in the military has found that, while psychiatrists are involved in the training initially, there were reservations about the idea; many rated the care of the prescribing psychologists as good to excellent, according to a report from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Another advantage is that people with a mental health condition do not have to visit multiple providers – for example, a psychologist for a therapy session but a physician or psychiatrist. Seeing a specific psychologist will simplify the process of medical prescription, assessment, and evaluation patient’s treatment since the psychologist will be accessing information from the chronological records of the previous condition.
Overall, psychologists diagnose, treat, assess the behavioral dysfunctions and psychological problems that result from, or related to mental and physical health. Additionally, psychologists play a significant role in promoting healthy behavior, preventing diseases, and improving patients’ quality of life. They perform their clinical functions according to rigorous ethical principles and code of conduct. This describes and discusses the vitally significant role of clinical health psychology in providing health care, following a biopsychosocial perspective of health and illness. Thus, there should not be any opposition as to why they aren’t entailed in medical prescriptions. (Waszczuk et al., 2016)
Psychologists are among the most highly trained doctoral-level providers of mental health services. Besides, psychologists who seek prescribing authority are required to receive three years of medical training before they are allowed to prescribe. Furthermore, as part of the existing legislation for defining management, prescribing psychologists must collaborate with their patient’s primary care physicians. The combined extensive mental health and medical training—with ongoing physician collaboration—suggests that psychologists are potentially more competent than primary care physicians once the psychologists start prescribing.
In conclusion, the debate on whether the psychologists should be allowed to prescribe the drugs remains a controversial issue and a topic for discussion. The field of psychology is comprehensive, so there is a need to narrow the scope into a significantly more debate topic. For instance, if we propose, it would mean all psychologists, including clinical psychologists, should not take part in medication prescription. On the other hand, if we criticize, it would mean even educational psychologists should prescribe drugs. Hence there is a need to specify which category shouldn’t be based on their area of specification and academic certifications.
REFERENCES
Shahidullah, J. D., Hostutler, C. A., & Stancin, T. (2018). Collaborative medication-related roles for pediatric primary care psychologists. Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology, 6(1), 61.
Schneider, R., Reinau, D., Schur, N., Blozik, E., Früh, M., Signorelli, A. … & Schwenkglenks, M. (2019). Drug prescription patterns, polypharmacy, and potentially inappropriate medication in Swiss nursing homes: a descriptive analysis based on claims data. Swiss medical weekly, 149, w20126.
Liu, H. Y., Beresin, E. V., & Chisolm, M. S. (2019). Social media skills for professional development in psychiatry and medicine. Psychiatric Clinics, 42(3), 483-492.
Patel, M. S., Day, S. C., Halpern, S. D., Hanson, C. W., Martinez, J. R., Honeywell, S., & Volpp, K. G. (2016). Generic medication prescription rates after the health system-wide redesign of default options within the electronic health record. JAMA internal medicine, 176(6), 847-848.
Waszczuk, M. A., Zimmerman, M., Ruggero, C., Li, K., MacNamara, A., Weinberg, A., … & Kotov, R. (2017). What do clinicians treat: Diagnoses or symptoms? The incremental validity of a symptom-based, dimensional characterization of emotional disorders in predicting medication prescription patterns. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 79, 80-88.
On the other side of the debate, psychologists may lack the medical training demanded in prescribing medications. Some states argue that the medical knowledge, skills, and training extracted in residency and medical school are essential to prescribe drugs and effectively predicting potentially adverse outcomes or complexities. However, some proponents of the RxP legislation respond by pointing to other prescribing non-physicians, such as nurse practitioners, podiatrists, dentists, and all of these specialists who have graduate and undergraduate degrees concentrating on courses relevant to the medical background, whereas a majority of psychologists doesn’t. Furthermore, the training required by the RxP legislation (typically, a master’s degree) is significantly shorter than that required for a physician or a PDP.
While RxP states are still undoubtedly in the minority today, there appears to be an emerging trend in favor of the legislation. In addition to the five states that have passed RxP legislation, three states (Oregon, Hawaii, and Texas) have RxP legislation currently pending.