Healthcare Professionals and Mental Health

I had another post planned for today, but then I realized there is more I need to share for Mental Health Awareness Month. So, today I want to address the role of healthcare professionals in treating and caring for people who live with mental illness. I have experienced several healthcare professionals who understand mental illness and are empathetic. Unfortunately, I have also experienced those who don’t understand and allow that lack of understanding to affect how they treat patients. 

I have shared my story of the painful experience I had. (Turning Hurtful Words Into Healing) It is hard to believe it has been eight years. Even though it has been that long, at times it still affects me. An interaction that provider never gave a second thought scarred me. I know I am not the only one. People with mental illness are misunderstood and mistreated often. I think it is happening less. At least that is what I would like to believe. 

I don’t know what the training programs for doctors and other healthcare professionals are teaching their students. My research indicates that most non-psychiatric doctors take one psychology course in medical school and do a 4-8 week psychiatric rotation. That doesn’t seem like enough. The training for physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners appears to be about the same, one course and a 4–6-week rotation. I wish mental health was a larger part of the curriculum for healthcare professionals. Mental health and physical health are tied together. They affect each other. My understanding of that connection has strengthened over the past two years. 

My mental health was not in a good place when I was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. I could not have faced my cancer diagnosis without also addressing my mental health. I needed my mental health team as much as I needed my oncologist while I fought cancer. I needed my oncologist to understand my mental health needs so she could better treat me. Thankfully, she understood. There were some chemo days when my anxiety was high. My oncologist was empathetic and gave me Ativan to help me get through the anxiety. She never doubted that my experience was real. My oncologist respected my mental health and as a result was better able to treat me as a whole person. 

What about primary care providers? They see a wide variety of patients. I am sure not a day goes by where they don’t see a patient with a mental illness. They may be seeing that patient for some other reason, but daily a patient enters their exam room who has some type of mental illness. How they treat these patients is important. I know my primary care provider not only understands mental illness, but she is also empathetic. That is important and I am grateful.  Patients need to know they can trust their provider. We need to know that our mental health needs will be taken seriously. We also need to know a physical symptom won’t be ignored because we have a mental illness. Physical symptoms are not in our head just because we have a diagnosed mental health disorder. 

I have had the privilege of giving talks to psychiatric nurse practitioner students. They listened with open minds and curiosity as I shared my lived experience. I would like to speak to medical students and students in physician assistant and general nurse practitioner programs. I think hearing from a person with lived mental illness experience would be valuable to them. I also think it would be beneficial to talk to those already in healthcare professions. It would give them a refresher on what it is like for a patient to live with mental illness. Hearing my experience or the experience of others with mental health disorders might encourage practitioners to learn more about mental health. It might even change how they approach their patients. Maybe it could help that physician’s assistant who mistreated me.  Since it has been eight years, I hope she has already figured out that she needs to be more empathetic. Sadly, unless we make purposeful efforts to provide healthcare professionals with a better understanding of mental health there will be providers like the one I experienced.

If you are a healthcare provider or healthcare instructor, you can reach out if you would like me to speak to your group. You can email me at ginacapobiancoauthor@gmail.com.