In the World according to Paddy Mac, there's all sorts to pick on in that statement. "Like physicians..." Shrinks are nothing like physicians. When it comes to the crunch, physicians give people a choice about what happens next. Shrinks don't. At crunch time, shrinks tell the patient what's going to happen and if they don't like it, tough, they initiate a lock-up until the patient agrees or 'complies.'
"Psychiatrists under pressure to deliver quality care..." Since when Prof? If quality care means you get picked up, locked up, drugged up and messed up, I wouldn't call that quality care. Then there's the revolving psychiatric door. A quality plumber for example fixes the boiler so you don't have to keep on calling him out to fix it over and over. If the benchmark of quality is where you don't have to keep going back for constant psychiatric 'repairs,' then I haven't heard of a quality psychiatrist. Ever.
"...with a minimum of resources." I did a Google search for 'mental health spending uk' and found this. The Nuffield Trust put up one of those fancy charts that people like me look at but don't have a clue what they mean. But I read a bit of text under the chart which I did understand. It said, "The largest single category of NHS expenditure is mental health, which includes patients with dementia. Spending in this area has risen by more than one third over less than a decade." I suppose if you have to keep on calling out the shrink for a fix, no pun intended, you're going to rack up the costs. No real fixes though.
Here's how Paddy Mac would rewrite the Prof's statement, "Unlike physicians, psychiatrists are not under pressure to deliver quality care. Quality care doesn't exist in psychiatry. Unlike physicians, psychiatrists lock 'em up and drug 'em up with shedloads of dosh at their disposal."
Nice work if you can get it.
