Psychiatric Times October 1997 Vol. They say it makes good sense to set up a system in which psychologists who meet additional educational requirements would be given the authority to prescribe medication.
Opponents contend that the training provided for in the bill is inadequate.
Many feel that as time brings new and significantly more powerful drugs for the treatment of mental disorders to the market, the arguments against psychologists prescribing will increase. Point Prior to training in psychiatry, my practice was in a rural primary care setting where I routinely collaborated closely with physician assistants and nurse practitioners. I see prescriptive privileges of one form or another for psychologists to be an inevitability. I watched a similar struggle for nurse practitioner prescriptive privileges in Oklahoma during my stint in primary care. The psychologists appear to believe that large numbers of untreated mentally ill would get better if their psychologists could prescribe medication for them, thereby making up for a resource-poor and underfunded mental health system.