XPost: soc.culture.african.american, soc.culture.british, sci.psychology   
   XPost: alt.psychology   
   From: ufo@cometcult.org   
      
   Martin.Looter.Kingfish@Commie.Whoremonger.Plagiarists.edu wrote...   
   > Researchers carrying out the largest   
   > ever  study  of  psychosis  tested  the   
   > claim that psychiatrists were discrim-   
   > inating against black patients. They   
   > found that, even when the ethnicity of   
   > the patient was unknown, psychosis   
   > was still diagnosed nine times more   
   > often in black people: almost exactly   
   > the same rate as their presence within   
   > mental health services.   
   >   
   > The study has, according to Professor   
   > Robin  Murray  from  the  Institute,   
   > shown that misdiagnosis, supposedly   
   > resulting  from  ‘institutionalised   
   > racism’, is a myth. On the contrary,   
   > “psychiatrists in the UK are less likely   
   > to diagnose psychosis in somebody   
   > who  is  black  than  white  with  the   
   > same symptoms”.   
      
   Has anyone considered that if the opposite were true - that UK blacks were   
   less likely to be diagnosed with psychosis than UK whites - that they   
   would be complaining about the failure to detect serious but treatable   
   mental disorders in black people and that the result was negligence on the   
   part of psychiatrists who obviously didn't care enough about their black   
   patients to pay enough attention to notice their psychotic behavior?   
      
   Still, the first paragraph quoted above makes me wonder how they did a   
   comparison to a group of patients whose ethnicity was unknown to the   
   psychiatrists who diagnosed them as psychotic.  Is it common practice in   
   the UK for psychiatrists and other doctors to evaluate and treat patients   
   without actually seeing them in person?  Even in the worst U.S. HMOs from   
   hell the patient is still seen by a semi-human nurse practitioner, and   
   even if he/she doesn't record the patient's race in his file, it still is   
   pretty obvious from both name and appearance.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)