Question of the Day: What’s the problem?

Every day, Psychiatric News will be asking Annual Meeting attendees a question. For the second day of the conference, we were wondering: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing psychiatry and mental health?

We heard from experienced psychiatrists about a range of issues, such as workforce shortages, stigma, and lack of awareness. Watch the video or read the lightly edited transcript below to learn more.

Rimal Bera, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry, University of California, Irvine; co-editor, Voices in Advocacy & Policy, Psychiatric News: It’s the same challenge as when I was a medical student and undergraduate: the stigma of mental illness. I think that’s still the biggest barrier in people becoming comfortable in reaching out. How do we address stigma? It’s really education. We have to have an open discussion and make it a part of the norm in our regular culture.

Howard Y. Liu, M.D., M.B.A., chair of psychiatry, University of Nebraska Medical Center; member, Psychiatric News Editorial Advisory Board: I think the biggest challenge in psychiatry is the shortage of workforce. We know that the population of psychiatrists is getting older. We really need to invest in the pipeline of new psychiatrists. I think one solution is to really invest in a national graduate medical education workforce. And that’s going to take Congress to really get together.

Petros Levounis, M.D., M.A., professor and chair of psychiatry, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School; chief of service, University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey; immediate past president, APA: The good news here is that we do have amazing research that tells us how we can help people with addiction and other mental health problems. The challenge here is dissemination: How do we get these amazing research findings, these amazing interventions that we have to be applied to the patients who struggle with addiction and other mental health problems.

Cheryl D. Wills, M.D., vice chair for diversity and director of child psychiatry, MetroHealth System in Cleveland; associate professor of psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University; member Psychiatric News Editorial Advisory Board: One of the biggest challenges would be access to quality office-based care. And that’s because we simply don’t have enough mental health professionals to provide the services that are needed. We have people who want to train in mental health. There are waiting lists for patients, there are waiting lists for trainings—so, one possible solution is to arrange for more training opportunities. If we do that, I think we’ll start moving in the right direction.

Jack Drescher, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry and faculty member, Columbia University Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health: Speaking as a private practitioner, one of the biggest challenges we’re having today is how to talk to people without getting embroiled in some kind of conflict, often with family and friends and people you’ve known for a long time. This is going on whether you’re on the right side of a political debate or the left side.

If you can, consider that the person at the other end has a real opinion, and it’s worth listening to what they’re concerned about. Because everybody’s anxious about something. We’re all just not anxious about the same thing. We really need to be accepting of the fact that whatever’s going on, at least we have each other. ■