What is it about?
This paper is a first hand account by a psychiatrist describing my own experience ultimately receiving ECT as treatment for my own serious depression. I write the article both from the point of view of being a doctor and of being a patient. What seemingly is an article about ECT morphs into an article about stigma. Stigma that sometimes serves as an obstacle for us, as patients, to be willing to accept a treatment we need or stigma, that even on a subconscious level, might effect a doctor considering to recommend the procedure.
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Why is it important?
If we can become more aware of how our treatment choices might be effected by lingering stigma or subconscious bias, we will do a much better job of overcoming the obstacles interfering with what might be optimal treatment
Perspectives
My hope is that this article will be thought provoking to doctors, to patients, and to the lay general public. And my hope is that medical education will further emphasize the importance of examining how subconscious bias or stigma might effect treatment choices--both by doctors and by patients.
Rebecca E. Barchas M.D.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: My Benefits From Electroconvulsive Therapy—What a Psychiatrist Learned by Being a Patient, Psychiatric Services, March 2021, American Psychiatric Association,
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ps.72301.
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