Alright, time for me to speak up. I will be as unbiased as I can be, being both a resident of critical care/pulm and as a pro-gun nut case (as some of the Democrats want you to believe we are).
1. I am not a Psychiatrist, I work critical care/pulm. I deal with the worst of the worst on a daily basis and do get some exposure to different Psychological and neuro-chemical pharmaceuticals. Psych usually deals with these patients, I'm only the physical doc not the mental, so keep that in mind.
2. When we have someone who is currently on any type of medication for different psychological disorders, whether it is Depakote for bipolar, Zoloft for depression, Trazadone for Schizophrenia, or even Xanax/Ativan/klonipin for anxiety. We have to not only monitor the persons physical but mental response to these medications.
What most people not in Medicine or in any healthcare field to begin with fail to realize, is that when we prescribe any medication; whether it is a Psychological medication, anticoagulant, diuretic, hypertension medication, seizure, or even supplements, etc. There needs to be some sort of monitoring to keep the desired "levels" in the blood and also the desired effects on whatever you are trying to treat.
If you prescribe a patient Warfarin, you better be drawing PT/INR lab tests AT LEAST weekly until we get them at a stable level. If someone is on Dilantin, we need Dilantin levels. Potassium levels for people on non K sparing diuretics. Etc.
The thing is, with all these other types of medication, we can adjust them according to set in stone TESTS that give us results.
Psychology is a tricky thing. You can monitor brain wave activity, check different chemicals in the blood stream that can affect neurological activity, etc. HOWEVER, it is more of an observational medicine of mental AND physical symptoms than just set in stone tests and results. Sure, you can do bullshit tests to check for different diagnosis's and whatnot, but it is never set in stone.
Getting back to the medication "levels". Some of you say that people being on these medications long term has adverse effects. That can be true in some cases. But, over time, being on the same dose of say Zoloft, you build a tolerance to this dosage and even medication. Psychology has the highest turn over for switching medications amongst any field of medicine.
Let me give this example:
1/1/13
Patient sees Doctor and states their "anxious". Doctor writes script for Ativan 0.5mg every six hours as needed for anxiety.
Patient is good for a few months
3/1/13
Patient returns to Doctor and states medicine isn't cutting it and isn't working. Doctor bumps up dosage to Ativan 1mg every six hours...
Patient is good for a few months
6/1/13
Patient sees Doctor and states medicine isn't working and has no desired effect. Doctor says fuck it and puts them on Klonipin or Xanax and starts the cycle all over again.
This is where we run into a problem with Psychology. When you are dealing with a mentally unstable individual, how do you KNOW for SURE that the medicine isn't working, they aren't taking it as prescribed, they are taking too much and became tolerant of the dose because of such, or are just plain addicted? Zoloft is not a narcotic like Ativan, Xanax, Klonipin (although shouldn't even be considered a narcotic because they are schedule 5), etc etc.
Basically, you have a patient that is either
A. Not receiving the appropriate dosage of medication to keep a neuro-chemical balance
B. Patient is built up a tolerance and needs medication readjustment
C. The patient needs something else
That's enough for medicine posting for now.
3. My guns never killed anybody, because "I" never killed anybody. Trying to be unbiased as I can be. There is no correlation with gun control and an area being safer. It is actually reverse. Even other countries that have strict gun control have high violent crimes per capita. Even looking at our own country. If we subtract the four strictest areas of gun control from our country (Chicaco, New York, Cali, Detroit) our violent crime ranking drops almost to dead last in the world from almost fourth. Crime rates in areas where there isn't restrictions is far less. Facts.
Once again, gun control doesn't work.
Neither does "stricter" background checks. In PA we have questions on the checks that specifically ask if you were ever diagnosed with a psychological disorder.
Because one person kills a few people we want to punish everyone. Sounds legit...
In summary. We have numerous problems in this country starting with the president down to the bum on the streets. We have a society problem, not an inanimate object killing people problem. People will find ways to commit crimes and murder people no matter what. I've seen it al, believe me.
I just wish the major media outlets would advertise the people that defend themselves with guns, the almost 2 MILLION incidents every year where an innocent person saves their own life, their kids life, their parents, friends, other families lives with a firearm. Never hear about it...
TL;DR.
- The world sucks
- Guns aren't the problem
- Psychological disorders are the most difficult to treat
- I'm tired
- I could have fapped instead of writing this.
- Don't get into medicine unless you want to be miserable.
Goodnight.
I broke my back... It's spinal.
