Psychosocial Medicine

I do not believe in fate, just the idea that we can be receptive and perceptive to the patterns of the world around us.

With that said, I have been feeling touched in a special way these past few days. I traveled across the US for a rotation in Family Medicine in what might be arguably the birthplace of Psychosocial medicine... it is really nice to see a program that openly and seamlessly integrates aspects of this into daily practice.

Yesterday's Grand Rounds covered a health care model that incorporates mental health as a key component of medical health. Behavioral Health Professionals are considered to be Primary Care Providers at the clinics (in this model) and indeed, many patients actually view the BHPs as their PCP instead of the doctor!

It goes to show that a lot of the pain and suffering people have can be alleviated by having someone open and willing to listen.

One of my favorite rotations on Maui when I did my third year longitudinal outpatient experience was psychiatry for precisely this reason. We had the opportunity to have longer, uninterrupted routine visits with people who had complex psychosocial issues in addition to a number of medical problems... and such a simple process led to so much healing.

Due to privacy and confidentiality concerns, I hesitate to speak in specifics about the cases I have been involved in. Luckily, I watched the season premiere of House which illustrates many of these principles.



House is committed to Mayfield Psychiatric ward and goes through an incredible process on the road to recovery... from nearly everything that makes House a Vicodin-popping, biting caustic sarcastic jerk.

The psychiatrist he is "pitted against" exhibits a lot of great traits for a physician. He listens, he reflects, he foils almost every antic that House can throw against him in the crusade to get his medical license back. How does he prevail? He speaks openly and honestly. He has impeccable timing, anticipating, confronting and deflecting to just the right degree that he makes conflict seem like a meaningless endeavor. Most importantly, he identifies what is important to House and uses THAT as House's path to rehabilitation.

Of course, for House it is the practice of medicine. In a psych ward, he is immediately able to identify and disable all of the different characters with the right combination of words and actions. He can diagnose and antagonize... but as he discovers in the course of this episode, he finds that he cannot FIX everything. He cannot fix anything really, since these are the fragile minds of people rather than diseased organs to be removed and discarded. In the process of helping others (as tragic as it may be on occasion) he helps himself.

I am hoping to see this process recur throughout the season, with him returning to the psychosocial aspects of medicine -- it is a daring move on the part of the writers since they have freed House to be redefined.