Opinion

As practicing clinicians, we all want to do what is best for patients. We hope our treatments will improve actual health outcomes (and not intermediate process metrics), so we make decisions based on “evidence” that lies on a continuum from “I hope” on one end to “I’m sure” on the other. This month, our three lead articles represent differing points along that continuum.

First, we consider H. pylori and gastric cancer. We know H. pylori eradication reduces ulcer risk and that H. pylori is a risk for gastric cancer. We did not know whether eradication reduces cancer risk. In a large retrospective study from the VA, Kumar et al demonstrated that eradication (not just treatment) substantially reduced subsequent gastric cancers. These data are not definitive, but they nudge us towards the “I’m sure” end of the continuum.

A second group of studies (both retrospective and prospective) suggests that successful weight loss after bariatric surgery was associated with a substantial reduction of risk for 13 cancer types related to obesity. Moderate evidence but again nudging us away from “I hope.”

A third article highlights the recent Clinical Practice Update on Barrett’s esophagus published by the AGA Clinical Practice Update Committee in Gastroenterology’s February 2020 issue. This practice update helps us understand the impact we will make on cancer reduction with surveillance and treatment of Barrett’s. Despite this publication, Barrett’s management remains closer to “hope” than “sure.”

The difficulty we face, as clinician or patient, is what to do when outcomes are really serious but evidence remains close to the “I hope” end. Take a reasonably healthy 68-year-old man with asymptomatic coronary disease, but a very high (and increasing) coronary artery calcium score, despite maximum statins and appropriate lifestyle practices. Should he initiate a PCSK9 inhibitor ($14,000 per year) absent evidence that it would alter cardiac risk? Recently, a retrospective study nudged us along the continuum (Peng et al. JACC Cardiovascular Imaging. 2020 Jan;13[1 Pt 1]:83-93). A serious outcome, suggestive but not definitive evidence, and no time for an RCT. Will such aggressive therapy help? I sure hope so.
 

John I. Allen, MD, MBA, AGAF
Editor in Chief

As practicing clinicians, we all want to do what is best for patients. We hope our treatments will improve actual health outcomes (and not intermediate process metrics), so we make decisions based on “evidence” that lies on a continuum from “I hope” on one end to “I’m sure” on the other. This month, our three lead articles represent differing points along that continuum.

First, we consider H. pylori and gastric cancer. We know H. pylori eradication reduces ulcer risk and that H. pylori is a risk for gastric cancer. We did not know whether eradication reduces cancer risk. In a large retrospective study from the VA, Kumar et al demonstrated that eradication (not just treatment) substantially reduced subsequent gastric cancers. These data are not definitive, but they nudge us towards the “I’m sure” end of the continuum.

A second group of studies (both retrospective and prospective) suggests that successful weight loss after bariatric surgery was associated with a substantial reduction of risk for 13 cancer types related to obesity. Moderate evidence but again nudging us away from “I hope.”

A third article highlights the recent Clinical Practice Update on Barrett’s esophagus published by the AGA Clinical Practice Update Committee in Gastroenterology’s February 2020 issue. This practice update helps us understand the impact we will make on cancer reduction with surveillance and treatment of Barrett’s. Despite this publication, Barrett’s management remains closer to “hope” than “sure.”

The difficulty we face, as clinician or patient, is what to do when outcomes are really serious but evidence remains close to the “I hope” end. Take a reasonably healthy 68-year-old man with asymptomatic coronary disease, but a very high (and increasing) coronary artery calcium score, despite maximum statins and appropriate lifestyle practices. Should he initiate a PCSK9 inhibitor ($14,000 per year) absent evidence that it would alter cardiac risk? Recently, a retrospective study nudged us along the continuum (Peng et al. JACC Cardiovascular Imaging. 2020 Jan;13[1 Pt 1]:83-93). A serious outcome, suggestive but not definitive evidence, and no time for an RCT. Will such aggressive therapy help? I sure hope so.
 

John I. Allen, MD, MBA, AGAF
Editor in Chief

As practicing clinicians, we all want to do what is best for patients. We hope our treatments will improve actual health outcomes (and not intermediate process metrics), so we make decisions based on “evidence” that lies on a continuum from “I hope” on one end to “I’m sure” on the other. This month, our three lead articles represent differing points along that continuum.

First, we consider H. pylori and gastric cancer. We know H. pylori eradication reduces ulcer risk and that H. pylori is a risk for gastric cancer. We did not know whether eradication reduces cancer risk. In a large retrospective study from the VA, Kumar et al demonstrated that eradication (not just treatment) substantially reduced subsequent gastric cancers. These data are not definitive, but they nudge us towards the “I’m sure” end of the continuum.

A second group of studies (both retrospective and prospective) suggests that successful weight loss after bariatric surgery was associated with a substantial reduction of risk for 13 cancer types related to obesity. Moderate evidence but again nudging us away from “I hope.”

A third article highlights the recent Clinical Practice Update on Barrett’s esophagus published by the AGA Clinical Practice Update Committee in Gastroenterology’s February 2020 issue. This practice update helps us understand the impact we will make on cancer reduction with surveillance and treatment of Barrett’s. Despite this publication, Barrett’s management remains closer to “hope” than “sure.”

The difficulty we face, as clinician or patient, is what to do when outcomes are really serious but evidence remains close to the “I hope” end. Take a reasonably healthy 68-year-old man with asymptomatic coronary disease, but a very high (and increasing) coronary artery calcium score, despite maximum statins and appropriate lifestyle practices. Should he initiate a PCSK9 inhibitor ($14,000 per year) absent evidence that it would alter cardiac risk? Recently, a retrospective study nudged us along the continuum (Peng et al. JACC Cardiovascular Imaging. 2020 Jan;13[1 Pt 1]:83-93). A serious outcome, suggestive but not definitive evidence, and no time for an RCT. Will such aggressive therapy help? I sure hope so.
 

John I. Allen, MD, MBA, AGAF
Editor in Chief

A number of years ago, a patient I was treating mentioned that she was not eating tomatoes. There had been stories in the news about people contracting bacterial infections from tomatoes, but I paused for a moment, then asked her: “Have there been any contaminated tomatoes here in Maryland?” There had not been and I was still happily eating salsa, but my patient thought about this differently: If disease-causing tomatoes were to come to our state, someone would be the first person to become ill. She did not want to take any risks. My patient, however, was a heavy smoker and already grappling with health issues that were caused by smoking, so I found her choice of what she should worry about and how it influenced her behavior to be perplexing. I realize it’s not the same; nicotine is an addiction, while tomatoes remain a choice for most of us, and it’s common for people to worry about very unlikely events even when we are surrounded by very real and statistically more probable threats to our well-being.

Today’s news reports are filled with stories about 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), an illness that started in Wuhan, China; as of Jan. 31, 2020, there were 9,776 confirmed cases and 213 deaths. There have been an additional 118 cases reported outside of mainland China, including 6 in the United States, and no one outside of China has died.

The response to the virus has been remarkable: Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million inhabitants, is on lockdown, as are 15 other cities in China; 46 million people have been affected, the largest quarantine in human history. Travel is restricted in parts of China, airports all over the world are screening those who fly in from Wuhan, foreign governments are bringing their citizens home from Wuhan, and even Starbucks has temporarily closed half its stores in China. The economics of containing this virus are astounding.

In the meantime, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that, as of the week of Jan. 25, there have been 19 million cases of the flu in the United States. Of those stricken, 180,000 people have been hospitalized and 10,000 have died, including 68 pediatric patients. No cities are on lockdown, public transportation runs as usual, airports don’t screen passengers for flu symptoms, and Starbucks continues to serve vanilla lattes to any willing customer. Anxiety about illness is not new; we’ve seen it with SARS, Ebola, measles, and even around Chipotle’s food poisoning cases – to name just a few recent scares. We have also seen a lot of media on vaping-related deaths, and as of early January 2020, vaping-related illnesses affected 2,602 people with 59 deaths. It has been a topic of discussion among legislators, with an emphasis on either outlawing the flavoring that might appeal to younger people or simply outlawing e-cigarettes. No one, however, is talking about outlawing regular cigarettes, despite the fact that many people have switched from cigarettes to vaping products as a way to quit smoking. So, while vaping has caused 59 deaths since 2018, cigarettes are responsible for 480,000 fatalities a year in the United States and smokers live, on average, 10 years less than nonsmokers.

So what fuels anxiety about the latest health scare, and why aren’t we more anxious about the more common causes of premature mortality? Certainly, the newness and the unknown are factors in the coronavirus scare. It’s not certain how this illness was introduced into the human population, although one theory is that it started with the consumption of bats who carry the virus. It’s spreading fast, and in some people, it has been lethal. The incubation period is not known, or whether it is contagious before symptoms appear. Coronavirus is getting a lot of public health attention and the World Health Organization just announced that the virus is a public health emergency of international concern. On the televised news on Jan. 29, 2020, coronavirus was the top story in the United States, even though an impeachment trial is in progress for our country’s president.

The public health response of locking down cities may help contain the outbreak and prevent a global epidemic, although millions of people had already left Wuhan, so the heavy-handed attempt to prevent spread of the virus may well be too late. In the case of the Ebola virus – a much more lethal disease that was also thought to be introduced by bats – public health measures certainly curtailed global spread, and the epidemic of 2014-2016 was limited to 28,600 cases and 11,325 deaths, nearly all of them in West Africa.

Most of the things that cause people to die are not new and are not topics the media chooses to sensationalize. Dissemination of news has changed over the decades, with so much more of it, instant reports on social media, and competition for viewers that leads journalists to pull at our emotions. We might worry about getting food poisoning from romaine lettuce – if that is what the news is focusing on – but we don’t worry when we enter our cars, keep firearms in our homes, or light up cigarettes. And while we may, or may not, get flu shots and avoid those who have the flu, how and where we position both our anxiety and our resources does not always make sense. Certainly some people are predisposed to worry about both common and uncommon dangers, while others seem never to worry and engage in acts that many of us would consider dangerous. If we are looking for logic, it may be hard to find – there are those who would happily go bungee jumping but wouldn’t dream of leaving the house out without hand sanitizer.

The repercussions from this massive response to the Wuhan coronavirus are significant. For the millions of people on lockdown in China, each day gets emotionally harder; some may begin to have issues procuring food, and the financial losses for the economy will be significant. It’s not really possible to know yet if this response is warranted; we do know that infectious diseases can kill millions. The AIDS pandemic has taken the lives of 36 million people since 1981, and the influenza pandemic of 1918 resulted in an estimated 20 million to 50 million deaths after infecting 500 million people. Still, one might wonder if other, more mundane causes of morbidity and mortality – the ones that no longer garner our dread or make it to the front pages – might also be worthy of more hype and resources.

Dr. Miller is coauthor with Annette Hanson, MD, of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.

A number of years ago, a patient I was treating mentioned that she was not eating tomatoes. There had been stories in the news about people contracting bacterial infections from tomatoes, but I paused for a moment, then asked her: “Have there been any contaminated tomatoes here in Maryland?” There had not been and I was still happily eating salsa, but my patient thought about this differently: If disease-causing tomatoes were to come to our state, someone would be the first person to become ill. She did not want to take any risks. My patient, however, was a heavy smoker and already grappling with health issues that were caused by smoking, so I found her choice of what she should worry about and how it influenced her behavior to be perplexing. I realize it’s not the same; nicotine is an addiction, while tomatoes remain a choice for most of us, and it’s common for people to worry about very unlikely events even when we are surrounded by very real and statistically more probable threats to our well-being.

Today’s news reports are filled with stories about 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), an illness that started in Wuhan, China; as of Jan. 31, 2020, there were 9,776 confirmed cases and 213 deaths. There have been an additional 118 cases reported outside of mainland China, including 6 in the United States, and no one outside of China has died.

The response to the virus has been remarkable: Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million inhabitants, is on lockdown, as are 15 other cities in China; 46 million people have been affected, the largest quarantine in human history. Travel is restricted in parts of China, airports all over the world are screening those who fly in from Wuhan, foreign governments are bringing their citizens home from Wuhan, and even Starbucks has temporarily closed half its stores in China. The economics of containing this virus are astounding.

In the meantime, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that, as of the week of Jan. 25, there have been 19 million cases of the flu in the United States. Of those stricken, 180,000 people have been hospitalized and 10,000 have died, including 68 pediatric patients. No cities are on lockdown, public transportation runs as usual, airports don’t screen passengers for flu symptoms, and Starbucks continues to serve vanilla lattes to any willing customer. Anxiety about illness is not new; we’ve seen it with SARS, Ebola, measles, and even around Chipotle’s food poisoning cases – to name just a few recent scares. We have also seen a lot of media on vaping-related deaths, and as of early January 2020, vaping-related illnesses affected 2,602 people with 59 deaths. It has been a topic of discussion among legislators, with an emphasis on either outlawing the flavoring that might appeal to younger people or simply outlawing e-cigarettes. No one, however, is talking about outlawing regular cigarettes, despite the fact that many people have switched from cigarettes to vaping products as a way to quit smoking. So, while vaping has caused 59 deaths since 2018, cigarettes are responsible for 480,000 fatalities a year in the United States and smokers live, on average, 10 years less than nonsmokers.

So what fuels anxiety about the latest health scare, and why aren’t we more anxious about the more common causes of premature mortality? Certainly, the newness and the unknown are factors in the coronavirus scare. It’s not certain how this illness was introduced into the human population, although one theory is that it started with the consumption of bats who carry the virus. It’s spreading fast, and in some people, it has been lethal. The incubation period is not known, or whether it is contagious before symptoms appear. Coronavirus is getting a lot of public health attention and the World Health Organization just announced that the virus is a public health emergency of international concern. On the televised news on Jan. 29, 2020, coronavirus was the top story in the United States, even though an impeachment trial is in progress for our country’s president.

The public health response of locking down cities may help contain the outbreak and prevent a global epidemic, although millions of people had already left Wuhan, so the heavy-handed attempt to prevent spread of the virus may well be too late. In the case of the Ebola virus – a much more lethal disease that was also thought to be introduced by bats – public health measures certainly curtailed global spread, and the epidemic of 2014-2016 was limited to 28,600 cases and 11,325 deaths, nearly all of them in West Africa.

Most of the things that cause people to die are not new and are not topics the media chooses to sensationalize. Dissemination of news has changed over the decades, with so much more of it, instant reports on social media, and competition for viewers that leads journalists to pull at our emotions. We might worry about getting food poisoning from romaine lettuce – if that is what the news is focusing on – but we don’t worry when we enter our cars, keep firearms in our homes, or light up cigarettes. And while we may, or may not, get flu shots and avoid those who have the flu, how and where we position both our anxiety and our resources does not always make sense. Certainly some people are predisposed to worry about both common and uncommon dangers, while others seem never to worry and engage in acts that many of us would consider dangerous. If we are looking for logic, it may be hard to find – there are those who would happily go bungee jumping but wouldn’t dream of leaving the house out without hand sanitizer.

The repercussions from this massive response to the Wuhan coronavirus are significant. For the millions of people on lockdown in China, each day gets emotionally harder; some may begin to have issues procuring food, and the financial losses for the economy will be significant. It’s not really possible to know yet if this response is warranted; we do know that infectious diseases can kill millions. The AIDS pandemic has taken the lives of 36 million people since 1981, and the influenza pandemic of 1918 resulted in an estimated 20 million to 50 million deaths after infecting 500 million people. Still, one might wonder if other, more mundane causes of morbidity and mortality – the ones that no longer garner our dread or make it to the front pages – might also be worthy of more hype and resources.

Dr. Miller is coauthor with Annette Hanson, MD, of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.

A number of years ago, a patient I was treating mentioned that she was not eating tomatoes. There had been stories in the news about people contracting bacterial infections from tomatoes, but I paused for a moment, then asked her: “Have there been any contaminated tomatoes here in Maryland?” There had not been and I was still happily eating salsa, but my patient thought about this differently: If disease-causing tomatoes were to come to our state, someone would be the first person to become ill. She did not want to take any risks. My patient, however, was a heavy smoker and already grappling with health issues that were caused by smoking, so I found her choice of what she should worry about and how it influenced her behavior to be perplexing. I realize it’s not the same; nicotine is an addiction, while tomatoes remain a choice for most of us, and it’s common for people to worry about very unlikely events even when we are surrounded by very real and statistically more probable threats to our well-being.

Today’s news reports are filled with stories about 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), an illness that started in Wuhan, China; as of Jan. 31, 2020, there were 9,776 confirmed cases and 213 deaths. There have been an additional 118 cases reported outside of mainland China, including 6 in the United States, and no one outside of China has died.

The response to the virus has been remarkable: Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million inhabitants, is on lockdown, as are 15 other cities in China; 46 million people have been affected, the largest quarantine in human history. Travel is restricted in parts of China, airports all over the world are screening those who fly in from Wuhan, foreign governments are bringing their citizens home from Wuhan, and even Starbucks has temporarily closed half its stores in China. The economics of containing this virus are astounding.

In the meantime, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that, as of the week of Jan. 25, there have been 19 million cases of the flu in the United States. Of those stricken, 180,000 people have been hospitalized and 10,000 have died, including 68 pediatric patients. No cities are on lockdown, public transportation runs as usual, airports don’t screen passengers for flu symptoms, and Starbucks continues to serve vanilla lattes to any willing customer. Anxiety about illness is not new; we’ve seen it with SARS, Ebola, measles, and even around Chipotle’s food poisoning cases – to name just a few recent scares. We have also seen a lot of media on vaping-related deaths, and as of early January 2020, vaping-related illnesses affected 2,602 people with 59 deaths. It has been a topic of discussion among legislators, with an emphasis on either outlawing the flavoring that might appeal to younger people or simply outlawing e-cigarettes. No one, however, is talking about outlawing regular cigarettes, despite the fact that many people have switched from cigarettes to vaping products as a way to quit smoking. So, while vaping has caused 59 deaths since 2018, cigarettes are responsible for 480,000 fatalities a year in the United States and smokers live, on average, 10 years less than nonsmokers.

So what fuels anxiety about the latest health scare, and why aren’t we more anxious about the more common causes of premature mortality? Certainly, the newness and the unknown are factors in the coronavirus scare. It’s not certain how this illness was introduced into the human population, although one theory is that it started with the consumption of bats who carry the virus. It’s spreading fast, and in some people, it has been lethal. The incubation period is not known, or whether it is contagious before symptoms appear. Coronavirus is getting a lot of public health attention and the World Health Organization just announced that the virus is a public health emergency of international concern. On the televised news on Jan. 29, 2020, coronavirus was the top story in the United States, even though an impeachment trial is in progress for our country’s president.

The public health response of locking down cities may help contain the outbreak and prevent a global epidemic, although millions of people had already left Wuhan, so the heavy-handed attempt to prevent spread of the virus may well be too late. In the case of the Ebola virus – a much more lethal disease that was also thought to be introduced by bats – public health measures certainly curtailed global spread, and the epidemic of 2014-2016 was limited to 28,600 cases and 11,325 deaths, nearly all of them in West Africa.

Most of the things that cause people to die are not new and are not topics the media chooses to sensationalize. Dissemination of news has changed over the decades, with so much more of it, instant reports on social media, and competition for viewers that leads journalists to pull at our emotions. We might worry about getting food poisoning from romaine lettuce – if that is what the news is focusing on – but we don’t worry when we enter our cars, keep firearms in our homes, or light up cigarettes. And while we may, or may not, get flu shots and avoid those who have the flu, how and where we position both our anxiety and our resources does not always make sense. Certainly some people are predisposed to worry about both common and uncommon dangers, while others seem never to worry and engage in acts that many of us would consider dangerous. If we are looking for logic, it may be hard to find – there are those who would happily go bungee jumping but wouldn’t dream of leaving the house out without hand sanitizer.

The repercussions from this massive response to the Wuhan coronavirus are significant. For the millions of people on lockdown in China, each day gets emotionally harder; some may begin to have issues procuring food, and the financial losses for the economy will be significant. It’s not really possible to know yet if this response is warranted; we do know that infectious diseases can kill millions. The AIDS pandemic has taken the lives of 36 million people since 1981, and the influenza pandemic of 1918 resulted in an estimated 20 million to 50 million deaths after infecting 500 million people. Still, one might wonder if other, more mundane causes of morbidity and mortality – the ones that no longer garner our dread or make it to the front pages – might also be worthy of more hype and resources.

Dr. Miller is coauthor with Annette Hanson, MD, of “Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2016). She has a private practice and is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, both in Baltimore.

The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak has unfolded so rapidly that many clinicians are scrambling to stay on top of it. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about how to prepare your clinic to respond to this outbreak.

Keep in mind that the outbreak is moving rapidly. Though scientific and epidemiologic knowledge has increased at unprecedented speed, there is much we don’t know, and some of what we think we know will change. Follow the links for the most up-to-date information.

What should our clinic do first?

Plan ahead with the following:

• Develop a plan for office staff to take travel histories from anyone with a respiratory illness and provide training for those who need it. Travel history at present should include asking about travel to China in the past 14 days, specifically Wuhan city or Hubei province.
• Review up-to-date infection control practices with all office staff and provide training for those who need it.
• Take an inventory of supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gowns, gloves, masks, eye protection, and N95 respirators or powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs), and order items that are missing or low in stock.
• Fit-test users of N95 masks for maximal effectiveness.
• Plan where a potential patient would be isolated while obtaining expert advice.
• Know whom to contact at the state or local health department if you have a patient with the appropriate travel history.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prepared a toolkit to help frontline health care professionals prepare for this virus. Providers need to stay up to date on the latest recommendations, as the situation is changing rapidly.

When should I suspect 2019-nCoV illness, and what should I do?

Take the following steps to assess the concern and respond:

• If a patient with respiratory illness has traveled to China in the past 14 days, immediately put a mask on the patient and move the individual to a private room. Use a negative-pressure room if available.
• Put on appropriate PPE (including gloves, gown, eye protection, and mask) for contact, droplet, and airborne precautions. CDC recommends an N95 respirator mask if available, although we don’t know yet if there is true airborne spread.
• Obtain an accurate travel history, including dates and cities. (Tip: Get the correct spelling, as the English spelling of cities in China can cause confusion.)
• If the patient meets the current CDC definition of “person under investigation” or PUI, or if you need guidance on how to proceed, notify infection control (if you are in a facility that has it) and call your state or local health department immediately.
• Contact public health authorities who can help decide whether the patient should be admitted to airborne isolation or monitored at home with appropriate precautions.

What is the definition of a PUI?

The current definition of a PUI is a person who has fever and symptoms of a respiratory infection (cough, shortness of breath) AND who has EITHER been in Wuhan city or Hubei province in the past 14 days OR had close contact with a person either under investigation for 2019-nCoV infection or with confirmed infection. The definition of a PUI will change over time, so check this link.

How can I test for 2019-nCoV?

As of Jan. 30, 2020, testing is by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and is available in the United States only through the CDC in Atlanta. Testing should soon be available in state health department laboratories. If public health authorities decide that your patient should be tested, they will instruct you on which samples to obtain.

The full sequence of 2019-nCoV has been shared, so some reference laboratories may develop and validate tests, ideally with assistance from CDC. If testing becomes available, make certain that it is a reputable lab that has carefully validated the test.

Should I test for other viruses?

Because the symptoms of 2019-nCoV infection overlap with those of influenza and other respiratory viruses, PCR testing for other viruses should be considered if it will change management (i.e., change the decision to provide influenza antivirals). Use appropriate PPE while collecting specimens, including eye protection. If 2019-nCoV is a consideration, you may want to send the specimen to a hospital lab for testing, where the sample will be processed under a biosafety hood, rather than doing point-of-care testing in the office.

How dangerous is 2019-nCoV?

The current estimated mortality rate is 2%-3%. That is probably an overestimate, as those with severe disease and those who die are more likely to be tested and reported early in an epidemic.

Our current knowledge is based on preliminary reports from hospitalized patients and will probably change. From the speed of spread and a single family cluster, it seems likely that there are milder cases and perhaps asymptomatic infection.

What else do I need to know about coronaviruses?

Coronaviruses are a large and diverse group of viruses, many of which are animal viruses. Before the discovery of the 2019-nCoV, six coronaviruses were known to infect humans. Four of these (HKU1, NL63, OC43, and 229E) predominantly caused mild to moderate upper respiratory illness, and they are thought to be responsible for 10%-30% of colds. They occasionally cause viral pneumonia and can be detected by some commercial multiplex panels.

Two other coronaviruses have caused outbreaks of severe respiratory illness in people: SARS, which emerged in Southern China in 2002, and MERS in the Middle East, in 2012. Unlike SARS, sporadic cases of MERS continue to occur.

The current outbreak is caused by 2019-nCoV, a previously unknown beta coronavirus. It is most closely related (~96%) to a bat virus and shares about 80% sequence homology with SARS CoV.

Andrew T. Pavia, MD, is the George and Esther Gross Presidential Professor and chief of the division of pediatric infectious disease in the department of pediatrics at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. He is also director of hospital epidemiology and associate director of antimicrobial stewardship at Primary Children’s Hospital, Salt Lake City. Dr. Pavia has disclosed that he has served as a consultant for Genentech, Merck, and Seqirus and that he has served as associate editor for The Sanford Guide.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak has unfolded so rapidly that many clinicians are scrambling to stay on top of it. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about how to prepare your clinic to respond to this outbreak.

Keep in mind that the outbreak is moving rapidly. Though scientific and epidemiologic knowledge has increased at unprecedented speed, there is much we don’t know, and some of what we think we know will change. Follow the links for the most up-to-date information.

What should our clinic do first?

Plan ahead with the following:

• Develop a plan for office staff to take travel histories from anyone with a respiratory illness and provide training for those who need it. Travel history at present should include asking about travel to China in the past 14 days, specifically Wuhan city or Hubei province.
• Review up-to-date infection control practices with all office staff and provide training for those who need it.
• Take an inventory of supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gowns, gloves, masks, eye protection, and N95 respirators or powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs), and order items that are missing or low in stock.
• Fit-test users of N95 masks for maximal effectiveness.
• Plan where a potential patient would be isolated while obtaining expert advice.
• Know whom to contact at the state or local health department if you have a patient with the appropriate travel history.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prepared a toolkit to help frontline health care professionals prepare for this virus. Providers need to stay up to date on the latest recommendations, as the situation is changing rapidly.

When should I suspect 2019-nCoV illness, and what should I do?

Take the following steps to assess the concern and respond:

• If a patient with respiratory illness has traveled to China in the past 14 days, immediately put a mask on the patient and move the individual to a private room. Use a negative-pressure room if available.
• Put on appropriate PPE (including gloves, gown, eye protection, and mask) for contact, droplet, and airborne precautions. CDC recommends an N95 respirator mask if available, although we don’t know yet if there is true airborne spread.
• Obtain an accurate travel history, including dates and cities. (Tip: Get the correct spelling, as the English spelling of cities in China can cause confusion.)
• If the patient meets the current CDC definition of “person under investigation” or PUI, or if you need guidance on how to proceed, notify infection control (if you are in a facility that has it) and call your state or local health department immediately.
• Contact public health authorities who can help decide whether the patient should be admitted to airborne isolation or monitored at home with appropriate precautions.

What is the definition of a PUI?

The current definition of a PUI is a person who has fever and symptoms of a respiratory infection (cough, shortness of breath) AND who has EITHER been in Wuhan city or Hubei province in the past 14 days OR had close contact with a person either under investigation for 2019-nCoV infection or with confirmed infection. The definition of a PUI will change over time, so check this link.

How can I test for 2019-nCoV?

As of Jan. 30, 2020, testing is by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and is available in the United States only through the CDC in Atlanta. Testing should soon be available in state health department laboratories. If public health authorities decide that your patient should be tested, they will instruct you on which samples to obtain.

The full sequence of 2019-nCoV has been shared, so some reference laboratories may develop and validate tests, ideally with assistance from CDC. If testing becomes available, make certain that it is a reputable lab that has carefully validated the test.

Should I test for other viruses?

Because the symptoms of 2019-nCoV infection overlap with those of influenza and other respiratory viruses, PCR testing for other viruses should be considered if it will change management (i.e., change the decision to provide influenza antivirals). Use appropriate PPE while collecting specimens, including eye protection. If 2019-nCoV is a consideration, you may want to send the specimen to a hospital lab for testing, where the sample will be processed under a biosafety hood, rather than doing point-of-care testing in the office.

How dangerous is 2019-nCoV?

The current estimated mortality rate is 2%-3%. That is probably an overestimate, as those with severe disease and those who die are more likely to be tested and reported early in an epidemic.

Our current knowledge is based on preliminary reports from hospitalized patients and will probably change. From the speed of spread and a single family cluster, it seems likely that there are milder cases and perhaps asymptomatic infection.

What else do I need to know about coronaviruses?

Coronaviruses are a large and diverse group of viruses, many of which are animal viruses. Before the discovery of the 2019-nCoV, six coronaviruses were known to infect humans. Four of these (HKU1, NL63, OC43, and 229E) predominantly caused mild to moderate upper respiratory illness, and they are thought to be responsible for 10%-30% of colds. They occasionally cause viral pneumonia and can be detected by some commercial multiplex panels.

Two other coronaviruses have caused outbreaks of severe respiratory illness in people: SARS, which emerged in Southern China in 2002, and MERS in the Middle East, in 2012. Unlike SARS, sporadic cases of MERS continue to occur.

The current outbreak is caused by 2019-nCoV, a previously unknown beta coronavirus. It is most closely related (~96%) to a bat virus and shares about 80% sequence homology with SARS CoV.

Andrew T. Pavia, MD, is the George and Esther Gross Presidential Professor and chief of the division of pediatric infectious disease in the department of pediatrics at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. He is also director of hospital epidemiology and associate director of antimicrobial stewardship at Primary Children’s Hospital, Salt Lake City. Dr. Pavia has disclosed that he has served as a consultant for Genentech, Merck, and Seqirus and that he has served as associate editor for The Sanford Guide.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak has unfolded so rapidly that many clinicians are scrambling to stay on top of it. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about how to prepare your clinic to respond to this outbreak.

Keep in mind that the outbreak is moving rapidly. Though scientific and epidemiologic knowledge has increased at unprecedented speed, there is much we don’t know, and some of what we think we know will change. Follow the links for the most up-to-date information.

What should our clinic do first?

Plan ahead with the following:

• Develop a plan for office staff to take travel histories from anyone with a respiratory illness and provide training for those who need it. Travel history at present should include asking about travel to China in the past 14 days, specifically Wuhan city or Hubei province.
• Review up-to-date infection control practices with all office staff and provide training for those who need it.
• Take an inventory of supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gowns, gloves, masks, eye protection, and N95 respirators or powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs), and order items that are missing or low in stock.
• Fit-test users of N95 masks for maximal effectiveness.
• Plan where a potential patient would be isolated while obtaining expert advice.
• Know whom to contact at the state or local health department if you have a patient with the appropriate travel history.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prepared a toolkit to help frontline health care professionals prepare for this virus. Providers need to stay up to date on the latest recommendations, as the situation is changing rapidly.

When should I suspect 2019-nCoV illness, and what should I do?

Take the following steps to assess the concern and respond:

• If a patient with respiratory illness has traveled to China in the past 14 days, immediately put a mask on the patient and move the individual to a private room. Use a negative-pressure room if available.
• Put on appropriate PPE (including gloves, gown, eye protection, and mask) for contact, droplet, and airborne precautions. CDC recommends an N95 respirator mask if available, although we don’t know yet if there is true airborne spread.
• Obtain an accurate travel history, including dates and cities. (Tip: Get the correct spelling, as the English spelling of cities in China can cause confusion.)
• If the patient meets the current CDC definition of “person under investigation” or PUI, or if you need guidance on how to proceed, notify infection control (if you are in a facility that has it) and call your state or local health department immediately.
• Contact public health authorities who can help decide whether the patient should be admitted to airborne isolation or monitored at home with appropriate precautions.

What is the definition of a PUI?

The current definition of a PUI is a person who has fever and symptoms of a respiratory infection (cough, shortness of breath) AND who has EITHER been in Wuhan city or Hubei province in the past 14 days OR had close contact with a person either under investigation for 2019-nCoV infection or with confirmed infection. The definition of a PUI will change over time, so check this link.

How can I test for 2019-nCoV?

As of Jan. 30, 2020, testing is by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and is available in the United States only through the CDC in Atlanta. Testing should soon be available in state health department laboratories. If public health authorities decide that your patient should be tested, they will instruct you on which samples to obtain.

The full sequence of 2019-nCoV has been shared, so some reference laboratories may develop and validate tests, ideally with assistance from CDC. If testing becomes available, make certain that it is a reputable lab that has carefully validated the test.

Should I test for other viruses?

Because the symptoms of 2019-nCoV infection overlap with those of influenza and other respiratory viruses, PCR testing for other viruses should be considered if it will change management (i.e., change the decision to provide influenza antivirals). Use appropriate PPE while collecting specimens, including eye protection. If 2019-nCoV is a consideration, you may want to send the specimen to a hospital lab for testing, where the sample will be processed under a biosafety hood, rather than doing point-of-care testing in the office.

How dangerous is 2019-nCoV?

The current estimated mortality rate is 2%-3%. That is probably an overestimate, as those with severe disease and those who die are more likely to be tested and reported early in an epidemic.

Our current knowledge is based on preliminary reports from hospitalized patients and will probably change. From the speed of spread and a single family cluster, it seems likely that there are milder cases and perhaps asymptomatic infection.

What else do I need to know about coronaviruses?

Coronaviruses are a large and diverse group of viruses, many of which are animal viruses. Before the discovery of the 2019-nCoV, six coronaviruses were known to infect humans. Four of these (HKU1, NL63, OC43, and 229E) predominantly caused mild to moderate upper respiratory illness, and they are thought to be responsible for 10%-30% of colds. They occasionally cause viral pneumonia and can be detected by some commercial multiplex panels.

Two other coronaviruses have caused outbreaks of severe respiratory illness in people: SARS, which emerged in Southern China in 2002, and MERS in the Middle East, in 2012. Unlike SARS, sporadic cases of MERS continue to occur.

The current outbreak is caused by 2019-nCoV, a previously unknown beta coronavirus. It is most closely related (~96%) to a bat virus and shares about 80% sequence homology with SARS CoV.

Andrew T. Pavia, MD, is the George and Esther Gross Presidential Professor and chief of the division of pediatric infectious disease in the department of pediatrics at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. He is also director of hospital epidemiology and associate director of antimicrobial stewardship at Primary Children’s Hospital, Salt Lake City. Dr. Pavia has disclosed that he has served as a consultant for Genentech, Merck, and Seqirus and that he has served as associate editor for The Sanford Guide.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Although the last decade has brought appropriate increased interest in the diagnosis and treatment of postpartum depression, with screening initiatives across more than 40 states in place and even new medications being brought to market for treatment, far less attention has been given to diagnosis and treatment of a particularly serious psychiatric illness: postpartum psychosis.

Postpartum psychosis is relatively rare, with an incidence of 1 in 1,000 births, but it is one of the most serious complications of modern obstetrics. Clinically, women can experience rapid mood changes, most often with the presentation that is consistent with a manic-like psychosis, with associated symptoms of delusional thinking, hallucinations, paranoia and either depression or elation, or an amalgam of these so-called “mixed symptoms.” Onset of symptoms typically is early, within 72 hours as is classically described, but may have a somewhat later time of onset in some women.

Many investigators have studied risk factors for postpartum psychosis, and it has been well established that a history of mood disorder, particularly bipolar disorder, is one of the strongest predictors of risk for postpartum psychosis. Women with histories of postpartum psychosis are at very high risk of recurrence, with as many as 70%-90% of women experiencing recurrence if not prophylaxed with an appropriate agent. From a clinical point of view, women with postpartum psychosis typically are hospitalized, given that this is both a psychiatric and potential obstetrical emergency. In fact, the data would suggest that although postpartum suicide and infanticide are not common, they can be a tragic concomitant of postpartum psychosis (Am J Psychiatry. 2016 Dec 1;173[12]:1179-88).

A great amount of interest has been placed on the etiology of postpartum psychosis, as it’s a dramatic presentation with very rapid onset in the acute postpartum period. A rich evidence base with respect to an algorithm of treatment that maximizes likelihood of full recovery or sustaining of euthymia after recovery is limited. Few studies have looked systematically at the optimum way to treat postpartum psychosis. Clinical wisdom has dictated that, given the dramatic symptoms with which these patients present, most patients are treated with lithium and an antipsychotic medication as if they have a manic-like psychosis. It may take brief or extended periods of time for patients to stabilize. Once they are stabilized, one of the most challenging questions for clinicians is how long to treat. Again, an evidence base clearly informing this question is lacking.

Over the years, many clinicians have treated patients with postpartum psychosis as if they have bipolar disorder, given the index presentation of the illness, so some of these patients are treated with antimanic drugs indefinitely. However, clinical experience from several centers that treat women with postpartum psychosis suggests that in remitted patients, a proportion of them may be able to taper and discontinue treatment, then sustain well-being for protracted periods.

One obstacle with respect to treatment of postpartum psychosis derives from the short length of stay after delivery for many women. Some women who present with symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the first 24-48 hours frequently are managed with direct admission to an inpatient psychiatric service. But others may not develop symptoms until they are home, which may place both mother and newborn at risk.

Given that the risk for recurrent postpartum psychosis is so great (70%-90%), women with histories of postpartum psychosis invariably are prophylaxed with mood stabilizer prior to delivery in a subsequent pregnancy. In our own center, we have published on the value of such prophylactic intervention, not just in women with postpartum psychosis, but in women with bipolar disorder, who are, as noted, at great risk for developing postpartum psychotic symptoms (Am J Psychiatry. 1995 Nov;152[11]:1641-5.)

Although postpartum psychosis may be rare, over the last 3 decades we have seen a substantial number of women with postpartum psychosis and have been fascinated with the spectrum of symptoms with which some women with postpartum psychotic illness present. We also have been impressed with the time required for some women to recompensate from their illness and the course of their disorder after they have seemingly remitted. Some women appear to be able to discontinue treatment as noted above; others, particularly if there is any history of bipolar disorder, need to be maintained on treatment with mood stabilizer indefinitely.

To better understand the phenomenology of postpartum psychosis, as well as the longitudinal course of the illness, in 2019, the Mass General Hospital Postpartum Psychosis Project (MGHP3) was established. The project is conducted as a hospital-based registry where women with histories of postpartum psychosis over the last decade are invited to participate in an in-depth interview to understand both symptoms and course of underlying illness. This is complemented by obtaining a sample of saliva, which is used for genetic testing to try to identify a genetic underpinning associated with postpartum psychosis, as the question of genetic etiology of postpartum psychosis is still an open one.

As part of the MGHP3 project, clinicians across the country are able to contact perinatal psychiatrists in our center with expertise in the treatment of postpartum psychosis. Our psychiatrists also can counsel clinicians on issues regarding long-term management of postpartum psychosis because for many, knowledge of precisely how to manage this disorder or the follow-up treatment may be incomplete.

From a clinical point of view, the relevant questions really include not only acute treatment, which has already been outlined, but also the issue of duration of treatment. While some patients may be able to taper and discontinue treatment after, for example, a year of being totally well, to date we are unable to know who those patients are. We tend to be more conservative in our own center and treat patients with puerperal psychosis for a more protracted period of time, usually over several years. We also ask women about their family history of bipolar disorder or postpartum psychosis. Depending on the clinical course (if the patient really has sustained euthymia), we consider slow taper and ultimate discontinuation. As always, treatment decisions are tailored to individual clinical history, course, and patient wishes.

Postpartum psychosis remains one of the most serious illnesses that we find in reproductive psychiatry, and incomplete attention has been given to this devastating illness, which we read about periodically in newspapers and magazines. Greater understanding of postpartum psychosis will lead to a more precision-like psychiatric approach, tailoring treatment to the invariable heterogeneity of this illness.

Dr. Cohen is the director of the Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which provides information resources and conducts clinical care and research in reproductive mental health. He has been a consultant to manufacturers of psychiatric medications. Email Dr. Cohen at obnews@mdedge.com.

Although the last decade has brought appropriate increased interest in the diagnosis and treatment of postpartum depression, with screening initiatives across more than 40 states in place and even new medications being brought to market for treatment, far less attention has been given to diagnosis and treatment of a particularly serious psychiatric illness: postpartum psychosis.

Postpartum psychosis is relatively rare, with an incidence of 1 in 1,000 births, but it is one of the most serious complications of modern obstetrics. Clinically, women can experience rapid mood changes, most often with the presentation that is consistent with a manic-like psychosis, with associated symptoms of delusional thinking, hallucinations, paranoia and either depression or elation, or an amalgam of these so-called “mixed symptoms.” Onset of symptoms typically is early, within 72 hours as is classically described, but may have a somewhat later time of onset in some women.

Many investigators have studied risk factors for postpartum psychosis, and it has been well established that a history of mood disorder, particularly bipolar disorder, is one of the strongest predictors of risk for postpartum psychosis. Women with histories of postpartum psychosis are at very high risk of recurrence, with as many as 70%-90% of women experiencing recurrence if not prophylaxed with an appropriate agent. From a clinical point of view, women with postpartum psychosis typically are hospitalized, given that this is both a psychiatric and potential obstetrical emergency. In fact, the data would suggest that although postpartum suicide and infanticide are not common, they can be a tragic concomitant of postpartum psychosis (Am J Psychiatry. 2016 Dec 1;173[12]:1179-88).

A great amount of interest has been placed on the etiology of postpartum psychosis, as it’s a dramatic presentation with very rapid onset in the acute postpartum period. A rich evidence base with respect to an algorithm of treatment that maximizes likelihood of full recovery or sustaining of euthymia after recovery is limited. Few studies have looked systematically at the optimum way to treat postpartum psychosis. Clinical wisdom has dictated that, given the dramatic symptoms with which these patients present, most patients are treated with lithium and an antipsychotic medication as if they have a manic-like psychosis. It may take brief or extended periods of time for patients to stabilize. Once they are stabilized, one of the most challenging questions for clinicians is how long to treat. Again, an evidence base clearly informing this question is lacking.

Over the years, many clinicians have treated patients with postpartum psychosis as if they have bipolar disorder, given the index presentation of the illness, so some of these patients are treated with antimanic drugs indefinitely. However, clinical experience from several centers that treat women with postpartum psychosis suggests that in remitted patients, a proportion of them may be able to taper and discontinue treatment, then sustain well-being for protracted periods.

One obstacle with respect to treatment of postpartum psychosis derives from the short length of stay after delivery for many women. Some women who present with symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the first 24-48 hours frequently are managed with direct admission to an inpatient psychiatric service. But others may not develop symptoms until they are home, which may place both mother and newborn at risk.

Given that the risk for recurrent postpartum psychosis is so great (70%-90%), women with histories of postpartum psychosis invariably are prophylaxed with mood stabilizer prior to delivery in a subsequent pregnancy. In our own center, we have published on the value of such prophylactic intervention, not just in women with postpartum psychosis, but in women with bipolar disorder, who are, as noted, at great risk for developing postpartum psychotic symptoms (Am J Psychiatry. 1995 Nov;152[11]:1641-5.)

Although postpartum psychosis may be rare, over the last 3 decades we have seen a substantial number of women with postpartum psychosis and have been fascinated with the spectrum of symptoms with which some women with postpartum psychotic illness present. We also have been impressed with the time required for some women to recompensate from their illness and the course of their disorder after they have seemingly remitted. Some women appear to be able to discontinue treatment as noted above; others, particularly if there is any history of bipolar disorder, need to be maintained on treatment with mood stabilizer indefinitely.

To better understand the phenomenology of postpartum psychosis, as well as the longitudinal course of the illness, in 2019, the Mass General Hospital Postpartum Psychosis Project (MGHP3) was established. The project is conducted as a hospital-based registry where women with histories of postpartum psychosis over the last decade are invited to participate in an in-depth interview to understand both symptoms and course of underlying illness. This is complemented by obtaining a sample of saliva, which is used for genetic testing to try to identify a genetic underpinning associated with postpartum psychosis, as the question of genetic etiology of postpartum psychosis is still an open one.

As part of the MGHP3 project, clinicians across the country are able to contact perinatal psychiatrists in our center with expertise in the treatment of postpartum psychosis. Our psychiatrists also can counsel clinicians on issues regarding long-term management of postpartum psychosis because for many, knowledge of precisely how to manage this disorder or the follow-up treatment may be incomplete.

From a clinical point of view, the relevant questions really include not only acute treatment, which has already been outlined, but also the issue of duration of treatment. While some patients may be able to taper and discontinue treatment after, for example, a year of being totally well, to date we are unable to know who those patients are. We tend to be more conservative in our own center and treat patients with puerperal psychosis for a more protracted period of time, usually over several years. We also ask women about their family history of bipolar disorder or postpartum psychosis. Depending on the clinical course (if the patient really has sustained euthymia), we consider slow taper and ultimate discontinuation. As always, treatment decisions are tailored to individual clinical history, course, and patient wishes.

Postpartum psychosis remains one of the most serious illnesses that we find in reproductive psychiatry, and incomplete attention has been given to this devastating illness, which we read about periodically in newspapers and magazines. Greater understanding of postpartum psychosis will lead to a more precision-like psychiatric approach, tailoring treatment to the invariable heterogeneity of this illness.

Dr. Cohen is the director of the Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which provides information resources and conducts clinical care and research in reproductive mental health. He has been a consultant to manufacturers of psychiatric medications. Email Dr. Cohen at obnews@mdedge.com.

Although the last decade has brought appropriate increased interest in the diagnosis and treatment of postpartum depression, with screening initiatives across more than 40 states in place and even new medications being brought to market for treatment, far less attention has been given to diagnosis and treatment of a particularly serious psychiatric illness: postpartum psychosis.

Postpartum psychosis is relatively rare, with an incidence of 1 in 1,000 births, but it is one of the most serious complications of modern obstetrics. Clinically, women can experience rapid mood changes, most often with the presentation that is consistent with a manic-like psychosis, with associated symptoms of delusional thinking, hallucinations, paranoia and either depression or elation, or an amalgam of these so-called “mixed symptoms.” Onset of symptoms typically is early, within 72 hours as is classically described, but may have a somewhat later time of onset in some women.

Many investigators have studied risk factors for postpartum psychosis, and it has been well established that a history of mood disorder, particularly bipolar disorder, is one of the strongest predictors of risk for postpartum psychosis. Women with histories of postpartum psychosis are at very high risk of recurrence, with as many as 70%-90% of women experiencing recurrence if not prophylaxed with an appropriate agent. From a clinical point of view, women with postpartum psychosis typically are hospitalized, given that this is both a psychiatric and potential obstetrical emergency. In fact, the data would suggest that although postpartum suicide and infanticide are not common, they can be a tragic concomitant of postpartum psychosis (Am J Psychiatry. 2016 Dec 1;173[12]:1179-88).

A great amount of interest has been placed on the etiology of postpartum psychosis, as it’s a dramatic presentation with very rapid onset in the acute postpartum period. A rich evidence base with respect to an algorithm of treatment that maximizes likelihood of full recovery or sustaining of euthymia after recovery is limited. Few studies have looked systematically at the optimum way to treat postpartum psychosis. Clinical wisdom has dictated that, given the dramatic symptoms with which these patients present, most patients are treated with lithium and an antipsychotic medication as if they have a manic-like psychosis. It may take brief or extended periods of time for patients to stabilize. Once they are stabilized, one of the most challenging questions for clinicians is how long to treat. Again, an evidence base clearly informing this question is lacking.

Over the years, many clinicians have treated patients with postpartum psychosis as if they have bipolar disorder, given the index presentation of the illness, so some of these patients are treated with antimanic drugs indefinitely. However, clinical experience from several centers that treat women with postpartum psychosis suggests that in remitted patients, a proportion of them may be able to taper and discontinue treatment, then sustain well-being for protracted periods.

One obstacle with respect to treatment of postpartum psychosis derives from the short length of stay after delivery for many women. Some women who present with symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the first 24-48 hours frequently are managed with direct admission to an inpatient psychiatric service. But others may not develop symptoms until they are home, which may place both mother and newborn at risk.

Given that the risk for recurrent postpartum psychosis is so great (70%-90%), women with histories of postpartum psychosis invariably are prophylaxed with mood stabilizer prior to delivery in a subsequent pregnancy. In our own center, we have published on the value of such prophylactic intervention, not just in women with postpartum psychosis, but in women with bipolar disorder, who are, as noted, at great risk for developing postpartum psychotic symptoms (Am J Psychiatry. 1995 Nov;152[11]:1641-5.)

Although postpartum psychosis may be rare, over the last 3 decades we have seen a substantial number of women with postpartum psychosis and have been fascinated with the spectrum of symptoms with which some women with postpartum psychotic illness present. We also have been impressed with the time required for some women to recompensate from their illness and the course of their disorder after they have seemingly remitted. Some women appear to be able to discontinue treatment as noted above; others, particularly if there is any history of bipolar disorder, need to be maintained on treatment with mood stabilizer indefinitely.

To better understand the phenomenology of postpartum psychosis, as well as the longitudinal course of the illness, in 2019, the Mass General Hospital Postpartum Psychosis Project (MGHP3) was established. The project is conducted as a hospital-based registry where women with histories of postpartum psychosis over the last decade are invited to participate in an in-depth interview to understand both symptoms and course of underlying illness. This is complemented by obtaining a sample of saliva, which is used for genetic testing to try to identify a genetic underpinning associated with postpartum psychosis, as the question of genetic etiology of postpartum psychosis is still an open one.

As part of the MGHP3 project, clinicians across the country are able to contact perinatal psychiatrists in our center with expertise in the treatment of postpartum psychosis. Our psychiatrists also can counsel clinicians on issues regarding long-term management of postpartum psychosis because for many, knowledge of precisely how to manage this disorder or the follow-up treatment may be incomplete.

From a clinical point of view, the relevant questions really include not only acute treatment, which has already been outlined, but also the issue of duration of treatment. While some patients may be able to taper and discontinue treatment after, for example, a year of being totally well, to date we are unable to know who those patients are. We tend to be more conservative in our own center and treat patients with puerperal psychosis for a more protracted period of time, usually over several years. We also ask women about their family history of bipolar disorder or postpartum psychosis. Depending on the clinical course (if the patient really has sustained euthymia), we consider slow taper and ultimate discontinuation. As always, treatment decisions are tailored to individual clinical history, course, and patient wishes.

Postpartum psychosis remains one of the most serious illnesses that we find in reproductive psychiatry, and incomplete attention has been given to this devastating illness, which we read about periodically in newspapers and magazines. Greater understanding of postpartum psychosis will lead to a more precision-like psychiatric approach, tailoring treatment to the invariable heterogeneity of this illness.

Dr. Cohen is the director of the Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which provides information resources and conducts clinical care and research in reproductive mental health. He has been a consultant to manufacturers of psychiatric medications. Email Dr. Cohen at obnews@mdedge.com.

For many years now, we have been lamenting the shortage of psychiatrists practicing in the United States. At this point, we must identify possible solutions.^1,2 Currently, the shortage of practicing psychiatrists in the United States could be as high as 45,000.³ The major problem is that the number of psychiatry residency positions will not increase in the foreseeable future, thus generating more psychiatrists is not an option.

Medicare pays about $150,000 per residency slot per year. To solve the mental health access problem, $27 billion (45,000 x $150,000 x 4 years)* would be required from Medicare, which is not feasible.⁴ The national average starting salary for psychiatrists from 2018-2019 was about $273,000 (much lower in academic institutions), according to Merritt Hawkins, the physician recruiting firm. That salary is modest, compared with those offered in other medical specialties. For this reason, many graduates choose other lucrative specialties. And we know that increasing the salaries of psychiatrists alone would not lead more people to choose psychiatry. On paper, it may say they work a 40-hour week, but they end up working 60 hours a week.

To make matters worse, family medicine and internal medicine doctors generally would rather not deal with people with mental illness and do “cherry-picking and lemon-dropping.” While many patients present to primary care with mental health issues, lack of time and education in psychiatric disorders and treatment hinder these physicians. In short, the mental health field cannot count on primary care physicians.

Meanwhile, there are thousands of unmatched residency graduates. In light of those realities, perhaps psychiatry residency programs could provide these unmatched graduates with 6 months of training and use them to supplement the workforce. These medical doctors, or “physician associates,” could be paired with a few psychiatrists to do clinical and administrative work. With one in four individuals having mental health issues, and more and more people seeking help because of increasing awareness and the benefits that accompanied the Affordable Care Act (ACA), physician associates might ease the workload of psychiatrists so that they can deliver better care to more people. We must take advantage of these two trends: The surge in unmatched graduates and “shrinking shrinks,” or the decline in the psychiatric workforce pool. (The Royal College of Physicians has established a category of clinicians called physician associates,⁵ but they are comparable to physician assistants in the United States. As you will see, the construct I am proposing is different.)

The current landscape

Currently, psychiatrists are under a lot of pressure to see a certain number of patients. Patients consistently complain that psychiatrists spend a maximum of 15 minutes with them, that the visits are interrupted by phone calls, and that they are not being heard and helped. Burnout, a silent epidemic among physicians, is relatively prevalent in psychiatry.⁶ Hence, some psychiatrists are reducing their hours and retiring early. Psychiatry has the third-oldest workforce, with 59% of current psychiatrists aged 55 years or older.⁷ A better pay/work ratio and work/life balance would enable psychiatrists to enjoy more fulfilling careers.

Many psychiatrists are spending a lot of their time in research, administration, and the classroom. In addition to those issues, the United States currently has a broken mental health care system.⁸ Finally, the medical practice landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and those changes undermine both the effectiveness and well-being of clinicians.

The historical landscape

Some people proudly refer to the deinstitutionalization of mental asylums and state mental hospitals in the United States. But where have these patients gone? According to a U.S. Justice Department report, 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons and county jails in 2013.⁹ In addition, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 were on probation or parole. The percentages of inmates in state and federal prisons and local jails with a psychiatric diagnosis were 56%, 45%, and 64%, respectively.

I work at the Maryland correctional institutions, part of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. One thing that I consistently hear from several correctional officers is “had these inmates received timely help and care, they wouldn’t have ended up behind bars.” Because of the criminalization of mental illness, in 44 states, the number of people with mental illness is higher in a jail or prison than in the largest state psychiatric hospital, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. We have to be responsible for many of the inmates currently in correctional facilities for committing crimes related to mental health problems. In Maryland, a small state, there are 30,000 inmates in jails, and state and federal prison. The average cost of a meal is $1.36, thus $1.36 x 3 meals x 30,000 inmates = $122,400.00 for food alone for 1 day – this average does not take other expenses into account. By using money and manpower wisely and taking care of individuals’ mental health problems before they commit crimes, better outcomes could be achieved.

I used to work for MedOptions Inc. doing psychiatry consults at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Because of the shortage of psychiatrists and nurse practitioners, especially in the suburbs and rural areas, those patients could not be seen in a timely manner even for their 3-month routine follow-ups. As my colleagues and I have written previously, many elderly individuals with major neurocognitive disorders are not on the Food and Drug Administration­–approved cognitive enhancers, such as donepezil, galantamine, and memantine.¹⁰ Instead, those patients are on benzodiazepines, which are associated with cognitive impairments, and increased risk of pneumonia and falls. Benzodiazepines also can cause and/or worsen disinhibited behavior. Also, in those settings, crisis situations often are addressed days to weeks later because of the doctor shortage. This situation is going to get worse, because this patient population is growing.
 

Child and geriatric psychiatry shortages

Child and geriatric psychiatrist shortages are even higher than those in general psychiatry.¹¹ Many years of training and low salaries are a few of the reasons some choose not to do a fellowship. These residency graduates would rather join a practice at an attending salary than at a fellow’s salary, which requires an additional 1 to 2 years of training. Student loans of $100,000–$500,000 after residency also discourage some from pursuing fellowship opportunities. We need to consider models such as 2 years of residency with 2 years of a child psychiatry fellowship or 3 years of residency with 1 year of geriatric psychiatry fellowship. Working as an adult attending physician (50% of the time) and concurrently doing a fellowship (50% of the time) while receiving an attending salary might motivate more people to complete a fellowship.

In specialties such as radiology, international medical graduates (IMGs) who have completed residency training in radiology in other countries can complete a radiology fellowship in a particular area for several years and can practice in the United States as board-eligible certified MDs. Likewise, in line with the model proposed here, we could provide unmatched graduates who have no residency training with 3 to 4 years of child psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry training in addition to some adult psychiatry training.

Implementation of such a model might take care of the shortage of child and geriatric psychiatrists. In 2015, there were 56 geriatric psychiatry fellowship programs; 54 positions were filled, and 51 fellows completed training.¹² “It appears that a reasonable percentage of IMGs who obtain a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry do not have an intent of pursuing a career in the field,” Marc H. Zisselman, MD, former geriatric psychiatry fellowship director and currently with the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, told me in 2016. These numbers are not at all sufficient to take care of the nation’s unmet need. Hence, implementing alternate strategies is imperative.
 

Administrative tasks and care

What consumes a psychiatrist’s time and leads to burnout? The answer has to do with administrative tasks at work. Administrative tasks are not an effective use of time for an MD who has spent more than a decade in medical school, residency, and fellowship training. Although electronic medical record (EMR) systems are considered a major advancement, engaging in the process throughout the day is associated with exhaustion.

Many physicians feel that EMRs have slowed them down, and some are not well-equipped to use them in quick and efficient ways. EMRs also have led to physicians making minimal eye contact in interviews with patients. Patients often complain: “I am talking, and the doctor is looking at the computer and typing.” Patients consider this behavior to be unprofessional and rude. In a survey of 57 U.S. physicians in family medicine, internal medicine, cardiology, and orthopedics, results showed that during the work day, 27% of their time was spent on direct clinical face time with patients and 49.2% was spent on EMR and desk work. While in the examination room with patients, physicians spent 52.9% of their time on direct clinical face time and 37.0% on EMR and desk work. Outside office hours, physicians spend up to 2 hours of personal time each night doing additional computer and other clerical work.¹³

Several EMR software systems, such as CareLogic, Cerner, Epic,NextGen, PointClickCare, and Sunrise, are used in the United States. The U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) use the computerized patient record system (CPRS) across the country. VA clinicians find CPRS extremely useful when they move from one VAMC to another. Likewise, hospitals and universities may use one software system such as the CPRS and thus, when clinicians change jobs, they find it hard to adapt to the new system.

Because psychiatrists are wasting a lot of time doing administrative tasks, they might be unable to do a good job with regard to making the right diagnoses and prescribing the best treatments.When I ask patients what are they diagnosed with, they tell me: “It depends on who you ask,” or “I’ve been diagnosed with everything.” This shows that we are not doing a good job or something is not right.

Currently, psychiatrists do not have the time and/or interest to make the right diagnoses and provide adequate psychoeducation for their patients. This also could be attributable to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, time constraints, cynicism, and apathy. Time constraints also lead to the gross underutilization¹⁴ of relapse prevention strategies such as long-acting injectables and medications that can prevent suicide, such as lithium and clozapine.¹⁵

Other factors that undermine good care include not participating in continuing medical education (CME) and not staying up to date with the literature. For example, haloperidol continues to be one of the most frequently prescribed (probably, the most common) antipsychotic, although it is clearly neurotoxic^16,17 and other safer options are available.¹⁸ Board certification and maintenance of certification (MOC) are not synonymous with good clinical practice. Many physicians are finding it hard to complete daily documentation, let alone time for MOC. For a variety of reasons, many are not maintaining certification, and this number is likely to increase. Think about how much time is devoted to the one-to-one interview with the patient and direct patient care during the 15-minute medical check appointment and the hour-long new evaluation. In some clinics, psychiatrists are asked to see more than 25 patients in 4 hours. Some U.S.-based psychiatrists see 65 inpatients and initiate 10 new evaluations in a single day. Under those kinds of time constraints, how can we provide quality care?
 

A model that would address the shortage

Overall, 7,826 PGY-1 applicants were unmatched in 2019, according to data from the 2019 Main Residency Match.¹⁹ Psychiatry residency programs could give these unmatched graduates 6 months of training (arbitrary duration) in psychiatry, which is not at all difficult with the program modules that are available.²⁰ We could use them as physician associates as a major contributor to our workforce to complete administrative and other clinical tasks.

Administrative tasks are not necessarily negative, as all psychiatrists have done administrative tasks as medical students, residents, and fellows. However, at this point, administrative tasks are not an effective use of a psychiatrist’s time. Those physician associates could be paired with two to three psychiatrists to do administrative tasks (for making daytime and overnight phone calls; handling prescriptions, prior authorizations, and medication orders, especially over-the-counter and comfort medications in the inpatient units; doing chart reviews; ordering and checking laboratory tests; collecting collateral information from previous clinicians and records; printing medication education pamphlets; faxing; corresponding with insurance companies/utilization review; performing documentation; billing; and taking care of other clinical and administrative paperwork).

In addition, physician associates could collect information using rating scales such as the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire for measurement-based care²¹ and Geriatric Depression Scale, both of which are currently not used in psychiatric practice because of time constraints and lack of manpower. Keep in mind that these individuals are medical doctors and could do a good job with these kinds of tasks. Most of them already have clinical experience in the United States and know the health care system. These MDs could conduct an initial interview (what medical students, residents, and fellows do) and present to the attending psychiatrist. Psychiatrists could then focus on the follow-up interview; diagnoses and treatment; major medical decision making, including shared decision making (patients feel that they are not part of the treatment plan); and seeing more patients, which is a more effective use of their time. This training would give these physician associates a chance to work as doctors and make a living. These MDs have completed medical school training after passing Medical College Admission Test – equivalent exams in their countries. They have passed all steps of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination and have received Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates certification. Some have even completed residency programs in their home countries.

Some U.S. states already have implemented these kinds of programs. In Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri,^22,23 legislators have passed laws allowing unmatched graduates who have not completed a residency program to work in medically underserved areas with a collaborating physician. These physicians must directly supervise the new doctors for at least a month before they can see patients on their own. Another proposal that has been suggested to address the psychiatrist shortage is employing physician assistants to provide care.^24-26

The model proposed here is comparable to postdoctoral fellow-principal investigator and resident-attending collaborative work. At hospitals, a certified nurse assistant helps patients with health care needs under the supervision of a nurse. Similarly, a physician associate could help a psychiatrist under his or her supervision. In the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore, where I worked previously, for example, nurses dictate and prepare discharge summaries for the attending physician with whom they work. These are the kinds of tasks that physician associates could do as well.

The wait time to get a new evaluation with a psychiatrist is enormous. The policy is that a new patient admitted to an inpatient unit must be seen within 24 hours. With this model, the physician associates could see patients within a few hours, take care of their most immediate needs, take a history and conduct a physical, and write an admission note for the attending psychiatrist to sign. Currently, the outpatient practice is so busy that psychiatrists do not have the time to read the discharge summaries of patients referred to them after a recent hospitalization, which often leads to poor aftercare. The physician associates could read the discharge summaries and provide pertinent information to the attending psychiatrists.

In the inpatient units and emergency departments, nurses and social workers see patients before the attending physician, present patient information to the attending psychiatrist, and document their findings. It is redundant for the physician to write the same narrative again. Rather, the physician could add an addendum to the nurse’s or social worker’s notes and sign off. This would save a lot of time.

Numerous well-designed studies support the adoption of collaborative care models as one means of providing quality psychiatric care to larger populations.^27,28 The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is currently training 3,500 psychiatrists in collaborative care through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative.^29,30 Despite this training and the services provided by the nurse practitioners and physician assistants, the shortage of psychiatrists has not been adequately addressed. Hence, we need to think outside the box to find other potential pragmatic solutions.

Simply increasing the hours of work or the number of nurse practitioners or physician assistants already in practice is not going to solve the problem completely. The model proposed here and previously³¹ is likely to improve the quality of care that we now provide. This model should not be seen as exploiting these unmatched medical graduates and setting up a two-tiered health care system. The salary for these physicians would be a small percentage (5%-10%; these are arbitrary percentages) from the reimbursement of the attending psychiatrist. This model would not affect the salary of the attending psychiatrists; with this model, they would be able to see 25%-50% more patients (again, arbitrary percentages) with the help and support from these physician associates.
 

Potential barriers to implementation

There could be inherent barriers and complications to implementation of this model that are difficult to foresee at this point. Nurse practitioners (222,000 plus) and physician assistants (83,000 plus) have a fixed and structured curriculum, have national examining boards and national organizations with recertification requirements, and are licensed as independent practitioners, at least as far as CME is concerned.

Physician associates would need a standardized curriculum and examinations to validate what they have studied and learned. This process might be an important part of the credentialing of these individuals, as well as evaluation of cultural competency. If this model is to successfully lead to formation of a specific clinical group, it might need its own specific identity, national organization, national standards of competency, national certification and recertification processes, and national conference and CME or at least a subsection in a national behavioral and medical health organization, such as the APA or the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

It would be desirable to “field test” the physician associate concept to clarify implementation difficulties, including the ones described above, that could arise. The cost of implementation of this program should not be of much concern; the 6-month training could be on a volunteer basis, or a small stipend might be paid by graduate medical education funding. This model could prove to be rewarding long term, save trillions of health care dollars, and allow us to provide exceptional and timely care.
 

Conclusion

The 2020 Mental Health America annual State of Mental Health in America report found that more than 70% of youth with severe major depressive disorder were in need of treatment in 2017. The percentage of adults with any mental illness who did not receive treatment stood at about 57.2%.³² Meanwhile, from 1999 through 2014, the age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States increased 24%.³³ More individuals are seeking help because of increased awareness.^34,35 In light of the access to services afforded by the ACA, physician associates might ease the workload of psychiatrists and enable them to deliver better care to more people. We would not necessarily have to use the term “physician associate” and could generate better terminologies later. In short, let’s tap into the pools of unmatched graduates and shrinking shrinks! If this model is successful, it could be used in other specialties and countries. The stakes for our patients have never been higher.

References

1. Bishop TF et al. Health Aff. 2016;35(7):1271-7.

2. National Council Medical Director Institute. The psychiatric shortage: Causes and solutions. 2017. Washington: National Council for Behavioral Health.

3. Satiani A et al. Psychiatric Serv. 2018;69:710-3.

4. Carlat D. Psychiatric Times. 2010 Aug 3;27(8).

5. McCartney M. BMJ. 2017;359:j5022.

6. Maslach C and Leiter MP. World Psychiatry. 2016 Jun 5;15:103-11.

7. Merritt Hawkins. “The silent shortage: A white paper examining supply, demand and recruitment trends in psychiatry.” 2018.

8. Sederer LI and Sharfstein SS. JAMA. 2014 Sep 24;312:1195-6.

9. James DJ and Glaze LE. Mental health problems of prison and jail inmates. 2006 Sep. U.S. Justice Department, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report.

10. Koola MM et al. J Geriatr Care Res. 2018;5(2):57-67.

11. Buckley PF and Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2016;15:23-4.

12. American Medical Association Database. Open Residency and Fellowship Positions.

13. Sinsky C et al. Ann Intern Med. 2016;165:753-60.

14. Koola MM. Curr Psychiatr. 2017 Mar. 16(3):19-20,47,e1.

15. Koola MM and Sebastian J. HSOA J Psychiatry Depress Anxiety. 2016;(2):1-11.

16. Nasrallah HA and Chen AT. Ann Clin Psychiatry. 2017 Aug;29(3):195-202.

17. Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2013 Jul;7-8.

18. Chen AT and Nasrallah HA. Schizophr Res. 2019 Jun;208:1-7.

19. National Resident Matching Program, Results and Data: 2019 Main Residency Match. National Resident Matching Program, Washington, 2019.

20. Masters KJ. J Physician Assist Educ. 2015 Sep;26(3):136-43.

21. Koola MM et al. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2011;199(12):989-90.

22. “New Missouri licensing offers ‘Band-Aid’ for physician shortages.” Kansas City Business Journal. Updated 2017 May 16.

23. “After earning an MD, she’s headed back to school – to become a nurse.” STAT. 2016 Nov 8.

24. Keizer TB and Trangle MA. Acad Psychiatry. 2015 Dec;39(6):691-4.

25. Miller JG and Peterson DJ. Acad Psychiatry. 2015 Dec;39(6):685-6.

26. Smith MS. Curr Psychiatr. 2019 Sep;18(9):17-24.

27. Osofsky HJ et al. Acad Psychiatry. 2016 Oct;40(5):747-54.

28. Dreier-Wolfgramm A et al. Z Gerontol Geriatr. 2017 May;50(Suppl 2):68-77.

29. Huang H and Barkil-Oteo A. Psychosomatics. 2015 Nov-Dec;56(6):658-61.

30. Raney L et al. Fam Syst Health. 2014 Jun;32(2):147-8.

31. Koola MM. Curr Psychiatr. 2016 Dec. 15(12):33-4.

32. Mental Health America. State of Mental Health in America 2020.

33. Curtin SC et al. NCHS Data Brief. 2016 Apr;(241):1-8.

34. Kelly DL et al. Ann Intern Med. 2020;172(2):167-8.

35. Miller JP and Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2015;14(12):45-6.

Dr. Koola is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral health at Stony Brook (N.Y.) University. His main area of interest is novel therapeutic discovery in the treatment of schizophrenia. He has a particular interest in improving the health care delivery system for people with psychiatric illness. Dr. Koola declared no conflicts of interest. He can be reached at maju.koola@stonybrook.edu.

*This commentary was updated 2/2/2020.

For many years now, we have been lamenting the shortage of psychiatrists practicing in the United States. At this point, we must identify possible solutions.^1,2 Currently, the shortage of practicing psychiatrists in the United States could be as high as 45,000.³ The major problem is that the number of psychiatry residency positions will not increase in the foreseeable future, thus generating more psychiatrists is not an option.

Medicare pays about $150,000 per residency slot per year. To solve the mental health access problem, $27 billion (45,000 x $150,000 x 4 years)* would be required from Medicare, which is not feasible.⁴ The national average starting salary for psychiatrists from 2018-2019 was about $273,000 (much lower in academic institutions), according to Merritt Hawkins, the physician recruiting firm. That salary is modest, compared with those offered in other medical specialties. For this reason, many graduates choose other lucrative specialties. And we know that increasing the salaries of psychiatrists alone would not lead more people to choose psychiatry. On paper, it may say they work a 40-hour week, but they end up working 60 hours a week.

To make matters worse, family medicine and internal medicine doctors generally would rather not deal with people with mental illness and do “cherry-picking and lemon-dropping.” While many patients present to primary care with mental health issues, lack of time and education in psychiatric disorders and treatment hinder these physicians. In short, the mental health field cannot count on primary care physicians.

Meanwhile, there are thousands of unmatched residency graduates. In light of those realities, perhaps psychiatry residency programs could provide these unmatched graduates with 6 months of training and use them to supplement the workforce. These medical doctors, or “physician associates,” could be paired with a few psychiatrists to do clinical and administrative work. With one in four individuals having mental health issues, and more and more people seeking help because of increasing awareness and the benefits that accompanied the Affordable Care Act (ACA), physician associates might ease the workload of psychiatrists so that they can deliver better care to more people. We must take advantage of these two trends: The surge in unmatched graduates and “shrinking shrinks,” or the decline in the psychiatric workforce pool. (The Royal College of Physicians has established a category of clinicians called physician associates,⁵ but they are comparable to physician assistants in the United States. As you will see, the construct I am proposing is different.)

The current landscape

Currently, psychiatrists are under a lot of pressure to see a certain number of patients. Patients consistently complain that psychiatrists spend a maximum of 15 minutes with them, that the visits are interrupted by phone calls, and that they are not being heard and helped. Burnout, a silent epidemic among physicians, is relatively prevalent in psychiatry.⁶ Hence, some psychiatrists are reducing their hours and retiring early. Psychiatry has the third-oldest workforce, with 59% of current psychiatrists aged 55 years or older.⁷ A better pay/work ratio and work/life balance would enable psychiatrists to enjoy more fulfilling careers.

Many psychiatrists are spending a lot of their time in research, administration, and the classroom. In addition to those issues, the United States currently has a broken mental health care system.⁸ Finally, the medical practice landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and those changes undermine both the effectiveness and well-being of clinicians.

The historical landscape

Some people proudly refer to the deinstitutionalization of mental asylums and state mental hospitals in the United States. But where have these patients gone? According to a U.S. Justice Department report, 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons and county jails in 2013.⁹ In addition, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 were on probation or parole. The percentages of inmates in state and federal prisons and local jails with a psychiatric diagnosis were 56%, 45%, and 64%, respectively.

I work at the Maryland correctional institutions, part of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. One thing that I consistently hear from several correctional officers is “had these inmates received timely help and care, they wouldn’t have ended up behind bars.” Because of the criminalization of mental illness, in 44 states, the number of people with mental illness is higher in a jail or prison than in the largest state psychiatric hospital, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. We have to be responsible for many of the inmates currently in correctional facilities for committing crimes related to mental health problems. In Maryland, a small state, there are 30,000 inmates in jails, and state and federal prison. The average cost of a meal is $1.36, thus $1.36 x 3 meals x 30,000 inmates = $122,400.00 for food alone for 1 day – this average does not take other expenses into account. By using money and manpower wisely and taking care of individuals’ mental health problems before they commit crimes, better outcomes could be achieved.

I used to work for MedOptions Inc. doing psychiatry consults at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Because of the shortage of psychiatrists and nurse practitioners, especially in the suburbs and rural areas, those patients could not be seen in a timely manner even for their 3-month routine follow-ups. As my colleagues and I have written previously, many elderly individuals with major neurocognitive disorders are not on the Food and Drug Administration­–approved cognitive enhancers, such as donepezil, galantamine, and memantine.¹⁰ Instead, those patients are on benzodiazepines, which are associated with cognitive impairments, and increased risk of pneumonia and falls. Benzodiazepines also can cause and/or worsen disinhibited behavior. Also, in those settings, crisis situations often are addressed days to weeks later because of the doctor shortage. This situation is going to get worse, because this patient population is growing.
 

Child and geriatric psychiatry shortages

Child and geriatric psychiatrist shortages are even higher than those in general psychiatry.¹¹ Many years of training and low salaries are a few of the reasons some choose not to do a fellowship. These residency graduates would rather join a practice at an attending salary than at a fellow’s salary, which requires an additional 1 to 2 years of training. Student loans of $100,000–$500,000 after residency also discourage some from pursuing fellowship opportunities. We need to consider models such as 2 years of residency with 2 years of a child psychiatry fellowship or 3 years of residency with 1 year of geriatric psychiatry fellowship. Working as an adult attending physician (50% of the time) and concurrently doing a fellowship (50% of the time) while receiving an attending salary might motivate more people to complete a fellowship.

In specialties such as radiology, international medical graduates (IMGs) who have completed residency training in radiology in other countries can complete a radiology fellowship in a particular area for several years and can practice in the United States as board-eligible certified MDs. Likewise, in line with the model proposed here, we could provide unmatched graduates who have no residency training with 3 to 4 years of child psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry training in addition to some adult psychiatry training.

Implementation of such a model might take care of the shortage of child and geriatric psychiatrists. In 2015, there were 56 geriatric psychiatry fellowship programs; 54 positions were filled, and 51 fellows completed training.¹² “It appears that a reasonable percentage of IMGs who obtain a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry do not have an intent of pursuing a career in the field,” Marc H. Zisselman, MD, former geriatric psychiatry fellowship director and currently with the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, told me in 2016. These numbers are not at all sufficient to take care of the nation’s unmet need. Hence, implementing alternate strategies is imperative.
 

Administrative tasks and care

What consumes a psychiatrist’s time and leads to burnout? The answer has to do with administrative tasks at work. Administrative tasks are not an effective use of time for an MD who has spent more than a decade in medical school, residency, and fellowship training. Although electronic medical record (EMR) systems are considered a major advancement, engaging in the process throughout the day is associated with exhaustion.

Many physicians feel that EMRs have slowed them down, and some are not well-equipped to use them in quick and efficient ways. EMRs also have led to physicians making minimal eye contact in interviews with patients. Patients often complain: “I am talking, and the doctor is looking at the computer and typing.” Patients consider this behavior to be unprofessional and rude. In a survey of 57 U.S. physicians in family medicine, internal medicine, cardiology, and orthopedics, results showed that during the work day, 27% of their time was spent on direct clinical face time with patients and 49.2% was spent on EMR and desk work. While in the examination room with patients, physicians spent 52.9% of their time on direct clinical face time and 37.0% on EMR and desk work. Outside office hours, physicians spend up to 2 hours of personal time each night doing additional computer and other clerical work.¹³

Several EMR software systems, such as CareLogic, Cerner, Epic,NextGen, PointClickCare, and Sunrise, are used in the United States. The U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) use the computerized patient record system (CPRS) across the country. VA clinicians find CPRS extremely useful when they move from one VAMC to another. Likewise, hospitals and universities may use one software system such as the CPRS and thus, when clinicians change jobs, they find it hard to adapt to the new system.

Because psychiatrists are wasting a lot of time doing administrative tasks, they might be unable to do a good job with regard to making the right diagnoses and prescribing the best treatments.When I ask patients what are they diagnosed with, they tell me: “It depends on who you ask,” or “I’ve been diagnosed with everything.” This shows that we are not doing a good job or something is not right.

Currently, psychiatrists do not have the time and/or interest to make the right diagnoses and provide adequate psychoeducation for their patients. This also could be attributable to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, time constraints, cynicism, and apathy. Time constraints also lead to the gross underutilization¹⁴ of relapse prevention strategies such as long-acting injectables and medications that can prevent suicide, such as lithium and clozapine.¹⁵

Other factors that undermine good care include not participating in continuing medical education (CME) and not staying up to date with the literature. For example, haloperidol continues to be one of the most frequently prescribed (probably, the most common) antipsychotic, although it is clearly neurotoxic^16,17 and other safer options are available.¹⁸ Board certification and maintenance of certification (MOC) are not synonymous with good clinical practice. Many physicians are finding it hard to complete daily documentation, let alone time for MOC. For a variety of reasons, many are not maintaining certification, and this number is likely to increase. Think about how much time is devoted to the one-to-one interview with the patient and direct patient care during the 15-minute medical check appointment and the hour-long new evaluation. In some clinics, psychiatrists are asked to see more than 25 patients in 4 hours. Some U.S.-based psychiatrists see 65 inpatients and initiate 10 new evaluations in a single day. Under those kinds of time constraints, how can we provide quality care?
 

A model that would address the shortage

Overall, 7,826 PGY-1 applicants were unmatched in 2019, according to data from the 2019 Main Residency Match.¹⁹ Psychiatry residency programs could give these unmatched graduates 6 months of training (arbitrary duration) in psychiatry, which is not at all difficult with the program modules that are available.²⁰ We could use them as physician associates as a major contributor to our workforce to complete administrative and other clinical tasks.

Administrative tasks are not necessarily negative, as all psychiatrists have done administrative tasks as medical students, residents, and fellows. However, at this point, administrative tasks are not an effective use of a psychiatrist’s time. Those physician associates could be paired with two to three psychiatrists to do administrative tasks (for making daytime and overnight phone calls; handling prescriptions, prior authorizations, and medication orders, especially over-the-counter and comfort medications in the inpatient units; doing chart reviews; ordering and checking laboratory tests; collecting collateral information from previous clinicians and records; printing medication education pamphlets; faxing; corresponding with insurance companies/utilization review; performing documentation; billing; and taking care of other clinical and administrative paperwork).

In addition, physician associates could collect information using rating scales such as the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire for measurement-based care²¹ and Geriatric Depression Scale, both of which are currently not used in psychiatric practice because of time constraints and lack of manpower. Keep in mind that these individuals are medical doctors and could do a good job with these kinds of tasks. Most of them already have clinical experience in the United States and know the health care system. These MDs could conduct an initial interview (what medical students, residents, and fellows do) and present to the attending psychiatrist. Psychiatrists could then focus on the follow-up interview; diagnoses and treatment; major medical decision making, including shared decision making (patients feel that they are not part of the treatment plan); and seeing more patients, which is a more effective use of their time. This training would give these physician associates a chance to work as doctors and make a living. These MDs have completed medical school training after passing Medical College Admission Test – equivalent exams in their countries. They have passed all steps of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination and have received Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates certification. Some have even completed residency programs in their home countries.

Some U.S. states already have implemented these kinds of programs. In Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri,^22,23 legislators have passed laws allowing unmatched graduates who have not completed a residency program to work in medically underserved areas with a collaborating physician. These physicians must directly supervise the new doctors for at least a month before they can see patients on their own. Another proposal that has been suggested to address the psychiatrist shortage is employing physician assistants to provide care.^24-26

The model proposed here is comparable to postdoctoral fellow-principal investigator and resident-attending collaborative work. At hospitals, a certified nurse assistant helps patients with health care needs under the supervision of a nurse. Similarly, a physician associate could help a psychiatrist under his or her supervision. In the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore, where I worked previously, for example, nurses dictate and prepare discharge summaries for the attending physician with whom they work. These are the kinds of tasks that physician associates could do as well.

The wait time to get a new evaluation with a psychiatrist is enormous. The policy is that a new patient admitted to an inpatient unit must be seen within 24 hours. With this model, the physician associates could see patients within a few hours, take care of their most immediate needs, take a history and conduct a physical, and write an admission note for the attending psychiatrist to sign. Currently, the outpatient practice is so busy that psychiatrists do not have the time to read the discharge summaries of patients referred to them after a recent hospitalization, which often leads to poor aftercare. The physician associates could read the discharge summaries and provide pertinent information to the attending psychiatrists.

In the inpatient units and emergency departments, nurses and social workers see patients before the attending physician, present patient information to the attending psychiatrist, and document their findings. It is redundant for the physician to write the same narrative again. Rather, the physician could add an addendum to the nurse’s or social worker’s notes and sign off. This would save a lot of time.

Numerous well-designed studies support the adoption of collaborative care models as one means of providing quality psychiatric care to larger populations.^27,28 The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is currently training 3,500 psychiatrists in collaborative care through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative.^29,30 Despite this training and the services provided by the nurse practitioners and physician assistants, the shortage of psychiatrists has not been adequately addressed. Hence, we need to think outside the box to find other potential pragmatic solutions.

Simply increasing the hours of work or the number of nurse practitioners or physician assistants already in practice is not going to solve the problem completely. The model proposed here and previously³¹ is likely to improve the quality of care that we now provide. This model should not be seen as exploiting these unmatched medical graduates and setting up a two-tiered health care system. The salary for these physicians would be a small percentage (5%-10%; these are arbitrary percentages) from the reimbursement of the attending psychiatrist. This model would not affect the salary of the attending psychiatrists; with this model, they would be able to see 25%-50% more patients (again, arbitrary percentages) with the help and support from these physician associates.
 

Potential barriers to implementation

There could be inherent barriers and complications to implementation of this model that are difficult to foresee at this point. Nurse practitioners (222,000 plus) and physician assistants (83,000 plus) have a fixed and structured curriculum, have national examining boards and national organizations with recertification requirements, and are licensed as independent practitioners, at least as far as CME is concerned.

Physician associates would need a standardized curriculum and examinations to validate what they have studied and learned. This process might be an important part of the credentialing of these individuals, as well as evaluation of cultural competency. If this model is to successfully lead to formation of a specific clinical group, it might need its own specific identity, national organization, national standards of competency, national certification and recertification processes, and national conference and CME or at least a subsection in a national behavioral and medical health organization, such as the APA or the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

It would be desirable to “field test” the physician associate concept to clarify implementation difficulties, including the ones described above, that could arise. The cost of implementation of this program should not be of much concern; the 6-month training could be on a volunteer basis, or a small stipend might be paid by graduate medical education funding. This model could prove to be rewarding long term, save trillions of health care dollars, and allow us to provide exceptional and timely care.
 

Conclusion

The 2020 Mental Health America annual State of Mental Health in America report found that more than 70% of youth with severe major depressive disorder were in need of treatment in 2017. The percentage of adults with any mental illness who did not receive treatment stood at about 57.2%.³² Meanwhile, from 1999 through 2014, the age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States increased 24%.³³ More individuals are seeking help because of increased awareness.^34,35 In light of the access to services afforded by the ACA, physician associates might ease the workload of psychiatrists and enable them to deliver better care to more people. We would not necessarily have to use the term “physician associate” and could generate better terminologies later. In short, let’s tap into the pools of unmatched graduates and shrinking shrinks! If this model is successful, it could be used in other specialties and countries. The stakes for our patients have never been higher.

References

1. Bishop TF et al. Health Aff. 2016;35(7):1271-7.

2. National Council Medical Director Institute. The psychiatric shortage: Causes and solutions. 2017. Washington: National Council for Behavioral Health.

3. Satiani A et al. Psychiatric Serv. 2018;69:710-3.

4. Carlat D. Psychiatric Times. 2010 Aug 3;27(8).

5. McCartney M. BMJ. 2017;359:j5022.

6. Maslach C and Leiter MP. World Psychiatry. 2016 Jun 5;15:103-11.

7. Merritt Hawkins. “The silent shortage: A white paper examining supply, demand and recruitment trends in psychiatry.” 2018.

8. Sederer LI and Sharfstein SS. JAMA. 2014 Sep 24;312:1195-6.

9. James DJ and Glaze LE. Mental health problems of prison and jail inmates. 2006 Sep. U.S. Justice Department, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report.

10. Koola MM et al. J Geriatr Care Res. 2018;5(2):57-67.

11. Buckley PF and Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2016;15:23-4.

12. American Medical Association Database. Open Residency and Fellowship Positions.

13. Sinsky C et al. Ann Intern Med. 2016;165:753-60.

14. Koola MM. Curr Psychiatr. 2017 Mar. 16(3):19-20,47,e1.

15. Koola MM and Sebastian J. HSOA J Psychiatry Depress Anxiety. 2016;(2):1-11.

16. Nasrallah HA and Chen AT. Ann Clin Psychiatry. 2017 Aug;29(3):195-202.

17. Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2013 Jul;7-8.

18. Chen AT and Nasrallah HA. Schizophr Res. 2019 Jun;208:1-7.

19. National Resident Matching Program, Results and Data: 2019 Main Residency Match. National Resident Matching Program, Washington, 2019.

20. Masters KJ. J Physician Assist Educ. 2015 Sep;26(3):136-43.

21. Koola MM et al. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2011;199(12):989-90.

22. “New Missouri licensing offers ‘Band-Aid’ for physician shortages.” Kansas City Business Journal. Updated 2017 May 16.

23. “After earning an MD, she’s headed back to school – to become a nurse.” STAT. 2016 Nov 8.

24. Keizer TB and Trangle MA. Acad Psychiatry. 2015 Dec;39(6):691-4.

25. Miller JG and Peterson DJ. Acad Psychiatry. 2015 Dec;39(6):685-6.

26. Smith MS. Curr Psychiatr. 2019 Sep;18(9):17-24.

27. Osofsky HJ et al. Acad Psychiatry. 2016 Oct;40(5):747-54.

28. Dreier-Wolfgramm A et al. Z Gerontol Geriatr. 2017 May;50(Suppl 2):68-77.

29. Huang H and Barkil-Oteo A. Psychosomatics. 2015 Nov-Dec;56(6):658-61.

30. Raney L et al. Fam Syst Health. 2014 Jun;32(2):147-8.

31. Koola MM. Curr Psychiatr. 2016 Dec. 15(12):33-4.

32. Mental Health America. State of Mental Health in America 2020.

33. Curtin SC et al. NCHS Data Brief. 2016 Apr;(241):1-8.

34. Kelly DL et al. Ann Intern Med. 2020;172(2):167-8.

35. Miller JP and Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2015;14(12):45-6.

Dr. Koola is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral health at Stony Brook (N.Y.) University. His main area of interest is novel therapeutic discovery in the treatment of schizophrenia. He has a particular interest in improving the health care delivery system for people with psychiatric illness. Dr. Koola declared no conflicts of interest. He can be reached at maju.koola@stonybrook.edu.

*This commentary was updated 2/2/2020.

For many years now, we have been lamenting the shortage of psychiatrists practicing in the United States. At this point, we must identify possible solutions.^1,2 Currently, the shortage of practicing psychiatrists in the United States could be as high as 45,000.³ The major problem is that the number of psychiatry residency positions will not increase in the foreseeable future, thus generating more psychiatrists is not an option.

Medicare pays about $150,000 per residency slot per year. To solve the mental health access problem, $27 billion (45,000 x $150,000 x 4 years)* would be required from Medicare, which is not feasible.⁴ The national average starting salary for psychiatrists from 2018-2019 was about $273,000 (much lower in academic institutions), according to Merritt Hawkins, the physician recruiting firm. That salary is modest, compared with those offered in other medical specialties. For this reason, many graduates choose other lucrative specialties. And we know that increasing the salaries of psychiatrists alone would not lead more people to choose psychiatry. On paper, it may say they work a 40-hour week, but they end up working 60 hours a week.

To make matters worse, family medicine and internal medicine doctors generally would rather not deal with people with mental illness and do “cherry-picking and lemon-dropping.” While many patients present to primary care with mental health issues, lack of time and education in psychiatric disorders and treatment hinder these physicians. In short, the mental health field cannot count on primary care physicians.

Meanwhile, there are thousands of unmatched residency graduates. In light of those realities, perhaps psychiatry residency programs could provide these unmatched graduates with 6 months of training and use them to supplement the workforce. These medical doctors, or “physician associates,” could be paired with a few psychiatrists to do clinical and administrative work. With one in four individuals having mental health issues, and more and more people seeking help because of increasing awareness and the benefits that accompanied the Affordable Care Act (ACA), physician associates might ease the workload of psychiatrists so that they can deliver better care to more people. We must take advantage of these two trends: The surge in unmatched graduates and “shrinking shrinks,” or the decline in the psychiatric workforce pool. (The Royal College of Physicians has established a category of clinicians called physician associates,⁵ but they are comparable to physician assistants in the United States. As you will see, the construct I am proposing is different.)

The current landscape

Currently, psychiatrists are under a lot of pressure to see a certain number of patients. Patients consistently complain that psychiatrists spend a maximum of 15 minutes with them, that the visits are interrupted by phone calls, and that they are not being heard and helped. Burnout, a silent epidemic among physicians, is relatively prevalent in psychiatry.⁶ Hence, some psychiatrists are reducing their hours and retiring early. Psychiatry has the third-oldest workforce, with 59% of current psychiatrists aged 55 years or older.⁷ A better pay/work ratio and work/life balance would enable psychiatrists to enjoy more fulfilling careers.

Many psychiatrists are spending a lot of their time in research, administration, and the classroom. In addition to those issues, the United States currently has a broken mental health care system.⁸ Finally, the medical practice landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and those changes undermine both the effectiveness and well-being of clinicians.

The historical landscape

Some people proudly refer to the deinstitutionalization of mental asylums and state mental hospitals in the United States. But where have these patients gone? According to a U.S. Justice Department report, 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons and county jails in 2013.⁹ In addition, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 were on probation or parole. The percentages of inmates in state and federal prisons and local jails with a psychiatric diagnosis were 56%, 45%, and 64%, respectively.

I work at the Maryland correctional institutions, part of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. One thing that I consistently hear from several correctional officers is “had these inmates received timely help and care, they wouldn’t have ended up behind bars.” Because of the criminalization of mental illness, in 44 states, the number of people with mental illness is higher in a jail or prison than in the largest state psychiatric hospital, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. We have to be responsible for many of the inmates currently in correctional facilities for committing crimes related to mental health problems. In Maryland, a small state, there are 30,000 inmates in jails, and state and federal prison. The average cost of a meal is $1.36, thus $1.36 x 3 meals x 30,000 inmates = $122,400.00 for food alone for 1 day – this average does not take other expenses into account. By using money and manpower wisely and taking care of individuals’ mental health problems before they commit crimes, better outcomes could be achieved.

I used to work for MedOptions Inc. doing psychiatry consults at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Because of the shortage of psychiatrists and nurse practitioners, especially in the suburbs and rural areas, those patients could not be seen in a timely manner even for their 3-month routine follow-ups. As my colleagues and I have written previously, many elderly individuals with major neurocognitive disorders are not on the Food and Drug Administration­–approved cognitive enhancers, such as donepezil, galantamine, and memantine.¹⁰ Instead, those patients are on benzodiazepines, which are associated with cognitive impairments, and increased risk of pneumonia and falls. Benzodiazepines also can cause and/or worsen disinhibited behavior. Also, in those settings, crisis situations often are addressed days to weeks later because of the doctor shortage. This situation is going to get worse, because this patient population is growing.
 

Child and geriatric psychiatry shortages

Child and geriatric psychiatrist shortages are even higher than those in general psychiatry.¹¹ Many years of training and low salaries are a few of the reasons some choose not to do a fellowship. These residency graduates would rather join a practice at an attending salary than at a fellow’s salary, which requires an additional 1 to 2 years of training. Student loans of $100,000–$500,000 after residency also discourage some from pursuing fellowship opportunities. We need to consider models such as 2 years of residency with 2 years of a child psychiatry fellowship or 3 years of residency with 1 year of geriatric psychiatry fellowship. Working as an adult attending physician (50% of the time) and concurrently doing a fellowship (50% of the time) while receiving an attending salary might motivate more people to complete a fellowship.

In specialties such as radiology, international medical graduates (IMGs) who have completed residency training in radiology in other countries can complete a radiology fellowship in a particular area for several years and can practice in the United States as board-eligible certified MDs. Likewise, in line with the model proposed here, we could provide unmatched graduates who have no residency training with 3 to 4 years of child psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry training in addition to some adult psychiatry training.

Implementation of such a model might take care of the shortage of child and geriatric psychiatrists. In 2015, there were 56 geriatric psychiatry fellowship programs; 54 positions were filled, and 51 fellows completed training.¹² “It appears that a reasonable percentage of IMGs who obtain a fellowship in geriatric psychiatry do not have an intent of pursuing a career in the field,” Marc H. Zisselman, MD, former geriatric psychiatry fellowship director and currently with the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, told me in 2016. These numbers are not at all sufficient to take care of the nation’s unmet need. Hence, implementing alternate strategies is imperative.
 

Administrative tasks and care

What consumes a psychiatrist’s time and leads to burnout? The answer has to do with administrative tasks at work. Administrative tasks are not an effective use of time for an MD who has spent more than a decade in medical school, residency, and fellowship training. Although electronic medical record (EMR) systems are considered a major advancement, engaging in the process throughout the day is associated with exhaustion.

Many physicians feel that EMRs have slowed them down, and some are not well-equipped to use them in quick and efficient ways. EMRs also have led to physicians making minimal eye contact in interviews with patients. Patients often complain: “I am talking, and the doctor is looking at the computer and typing.” Patients consider this behavior to be unprofessional and rude. In a survey of 57 U.S. physicians in family medicine, internal medicine, cardiology, and orthopedics, results showed that during the work day, 27% of their time was spent on direct clinical face time with patients and 49.2% was spent on EMR and desk work. While in the examination room with patients, physicians spent 52.9% of their time on direct clinical face time and 37.0% on EMR and desk work. Outside office hours, physicians spend up to 2 hours of personal time each night doing additional computer and other clerical work.¹³

Several EMR software systems, such as CareLogic, Cerner, Epic,NextGen, PointClickCare, and Sunrise, are used in the United States. The U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) use the computerized patient record system (CPRS) across the country. VA clinicians find CPRS extremely useful when they move from one VAMC to another. Likewise, hospitals and universities may use one software system such as the CPRS and thus, when clinicians change jobs, they find it hard to adapt to the new system.

Because psychiatrists are wasting a lot of time doing administrative tasks, they might be unable to do a good job with regard to making the right diagnoses and prescribing the best treatments.When I ask patients what are they diagnosed with, they tell me: “It depends on who you ask,” or “I’ve been diagnosed with everything.” This shows that we are not doing a good job or something is not right.

Currently, psychiatrists do not have the time and/or interest to make the right diagnoses and provide adequate psychoeducation for their patients. This also could be attributable to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, time constraints, cynicism, and apathy. Time constraints also lead to the gross underutilization¹⁴ of relapse prevention strategies such as long-acting injectables and medications that can prevent suicide, such as lithium and clozapine.¹⁵

Other factors that undermine good care include not participating in continuing medical education (CME) and not staying up to date with the literature. For example, haloperidol continues to be one of the most frequently prescribed (probably, the most common) antipsychotic, although it is clearly neurotoxic^16,17 and other safer options are available.¹⁸ Board certification and maintenance of certification (MOC) are not synonymous with good clinical practice. Many physicians are finding it hard to complete daily documentation, let alone time for MOC. For a variety of reasons, many are not maintaining certification, and this number is likely to increase. Think about how much time is devoted to the one-to-one interview with the patient and direct patient care during the 15-minute medical check appointment and the hour-long new evaluation. In some clinics, psychiatrists are asked to see more than 25 patients in 4 hours. Some U.S.-based psychiatrists see 65 inpatients and initiate 10 new evaluations in a single day. Under those kinds of time constraints, how can we provide quality care?
 

A model that would address the shortage

Overall, 7,826 PGY-1 applicants were unmatched in 2019, according to data from the 2019 Main Residency Match.¹⁹ Psychiatry residency programs could give these unmatched graduates 6 months of training (arbitrary duration) in psychiatry, which is not at all difficult with the program modules that are available.²⁰ We could use them as physician associates as a major contributor to our workforce to complete administrative and other clinical tasks.

Administrative tasks are not necessarily negative, as all psychiatrists have done administrative tasks as medical students, residents, and fellows. However, at this point, administrative tasks are not an effective use of a psychiatrist’s time. Those physician associates could be paired with two to three psychiatrists to do administrative tasks (for making daytime and overnight phone calls; handling prescriptions, prior authorizations, and medication orders, especially over-the-counter and comfort medications in the inpatient units; doing chart reviews; ordering and checking laboratory tests; collecting collateral information from previous clinicians and records; printing medication education pamphlets; faxing; corresponding with insurance companies/utilization review; performing documentation; billing; and taking care of other clinical and administrative paperwork).

In addition, physician associates could collect information using rating scales such as the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire for measurement-based care²¹ and Geriatric Depression Scale, both of which are currently not used in psychiatric practice because of time constraints and lack of manpower. Keep in mind that these individuals are medical doctors and could do a good job with these kinds of tasks. Most of them already have clinical experience in the United States and know the health care system. These MDs could conduct an initial interview (what medical students, residents, and fellows do) and present to the attending psychiatrist. Psychiatrists could then focus on the follow-up interview; diagnoses and treatment; major medical decision making, including shared decision making (patients feel that they are not part of the treatment plan); and seeing more patients, which is a more effective use of their time. This training would give these physician associates a chance to work as doctors and make a living. These MDs have completed medical school training after passing Medical College Admission Test – equivalent exams in their countries. They have passed all steps of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination and have received Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates certification. Some have even completed residency programs in their home countries.

Some U.S. states already have implemented these kinds of programs. In Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri,^22,23 legislators have passed laws allowing unmatched graduates who have not completed a residency program to work in medically underserved areas with a collaborating physician. These physicians must directly supervise the new doctors for at least a month before they can see patients on their own. Another proposal that has been suggested to address the psychiatrist shortage is employing physician assistants to provide care.^24-26

The model proposed here is comparable to postdoctoral fellow-principal investigator and resident-attending collaborative work. At hospitals, a certified nurse assistant helps patients with health care needs under the supervision of a nurse. Similarly, a physician associate could help a psychiatrist under his or her supervision. In the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore, where I worked previously, for example, nurses dictate and prepare discharge summaries for the attending physician with whom they work. These are the kinds of tasks that physician associates could do as well.

The wait time to get a new evaluation with a psychiatrist is enormous. The policy is that a new patient admitted to an inpatient unit must be seen within 24 hours. With this model, the physician associates could see patients within a few hours, take care of their most immediate needs, take a history and conduct a physical, and write an admission note for the attending psychiatrist to sign. Currently, the outpatient practice is so busy that psychiatrists do not have the time to read the discharge summaries of patients referred to them after a recent hospitalization, which often leads to poor aftercare. The physician associates could read the discharge summaries and provide pertinent information to the attending psychiatrists.

In the inpatient units and emergency departments, nurses and social workers see patients before the attending physician, present patient information to the attending psychiatrist, and document their findings. It is redundant for the physician to write the same narrative again. Rather, the physician could add an addendum to the nurse’s or social worker’s notes and sign off. This would save a lot of time.

Numerous well-designed studies support the adoption of collaborative care models as one means of providing quality psychiatric care to larger populations.^27,28 The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is currently training 3,500 psychiatrists in collaborative care through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative.^29,30 Despite this training and the services provided by the nurse practitioners and physician assistants, the shortage of psychiatrists has not been adequately addressed. Hence, we need to think outside the box to find other potential pragmatic solutions.

Simply increasing the hours of work or the number of nurse practitioners or physician assistants already in practice is not going to solve the problem completely. The model proposed here and previously³¹ is likely to improve the quality of care that we now provide. This model should not be seen as exploiting these unmatched medical graduates and setting up a two-tiered health care system. The salary for these physicians would be a small percentage (5%-10%; these are arbitrary percentages) from the reimbursement of the attending psychiatrist. This model would not affect the salary of the attending psychiatrists; with this model, they would be able to see 25%-50% more patients (again, arbitrary percentages) with the help and support from these physician associates.
 

Potential barriers to implementation

There could be inherent barriers and complications to implementation of this model that are difficult to foresee at this point. Nurse practitioners (222,000 plus) and physician assistants (83,000 plus) have a fixed and structured curriculum, have national examining boards and national organizations with recertification requirements, and are licensed as independent practitioners, at least as far as CME is concerned.

Physician associates would need a standardized curriculum and examinations to validate what they have studied and learned. This process might be an important part of the credentialing of these individuals, as well as evaluation of cultural competency. If this model is to successfully lead to formation of a specific clinical group, it might need its own specific identity, national organization, national standards of competency, national certification and recertification processes, and national conference and CME or at least a subsection in a national behavioral and medical health organization, such as the APA or the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

It would be desirable to “field test” the physician associate concept to clarify implementation difficulties, including the ones described above, that could arise. The cost of implementation of this program should not be of much concern; the 6-month training could be on a volunteer basis, or a small stipend might be paid by graduate medical education funding. This model could prove to be rewarding long term, save trillions of health care dollars, and allow us to provide exceptional and timely care.
 

Conclusion

The 2020 Mental Health America annual State of Mental Health in America report found that more than 70% of youth with severe major depressive disorder were in need of treatment in 2017. The percentage of adults with any mental illness who did not receive treatment stood at about 57.2%.³² Meanwhile, from 1999 through 2014, the age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States increased 24%.³³ More individuals are seeking help because of increased awareness.^34,35 In light of the access to services afforded by the ACA, physician associates might ease the workload of psychiatrists and enable them to deliver better care to more people. We would not necessarily have to use the term “physician associate” and could generate better terminologies later. In short, let’s tap into the pools of unmatched graduates and shrinking shrinks! If this model is successful, it could be used in other specialties and countries. The stakes for our patients have never been higher.

References

1. Bishop TF et al. Health Aff. 2016;35(7):1271-7.

2. National Council Medical Director Institute. The psychiatric shortage: Causes and solutions. 2017. Washington: National Council for Behavioral Health.

3. Satiani A et al. Psychiatric Serv. 2018;69:710-3.

4. Carlat D. Psychiatric Times. 2010 Aug 3;27(8).

5. McCartney M. BMJ. 2017;359:j5022.

6. Maslach C and Leiter MP. World Psychiatry. 2016 Jun 5;15:103-11.

7. Merritt Hawkins. “The silent shortage: A white paper examining supply, demand and recruitment trends in psychiatry.” 2018.

8. Sederer LI and Sharfstein SS. JAMA. 2014 Sep 24;312:1195-6.

9. James DJ and Glaze LE. Mental health problems of prison and jail inmates. 2006 Sep. U.S. Justice Department, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report.

10. Koola MM et al. J Geriatr Care Res. 2018;5(2):57-67.

11. Buckley PF and Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2016;15:23-4.

12. American Medical Association Database. Open Residency and Fellowship Positions.

13. Sinsky C et al. Ann Intern Med. 2016;165:753-60.

14. Koola MM. Curr Psychiatr. 2017 Mar. 16(3):19-20,47,e1.

15. Koola MM and Sebastian J. HSOA J Psychiatry Depress Anxiety. 2016;(2):1-11.

16. Nasrallah HA and Chen AT. Ann Clin Psychiatry. 2017 Aug;29(3):195-202.

17. Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2013 Jul;7-8.

18. Chen AT and Nasrallah HA. Schizophr Res. 2019 Jun;208:1-7.

19. National Resident Matching Program, Results and Data: 2019 Main Residency Match. National Resident Matching Program, Washington, 2019.

20. Masters KJ. J Physician Assist Educ. 2015 Sep;26(3):136-43.

21. Koola MM et al. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2011;199(12):989-90.

22. “New Missouri licensing offers ‘Band-Aid’ for physician shortages.” Kansas City Business Journal. Updated 2017 May 16.

23. “After earning an MD, she’s headed back to school – to become a nurse.” STAT. 2016 Nov 8.

24. Keizer TB and Trangle MA. Acad Psychiatry. 2015 Dec;39(6):691-4.

25. Miller JG and Peterson DJ. Acad Psychiatry. 2015 Dec;39(6):685-6.

26. Smith MS. Curr Psychiatr. 2019 Sep;18(9):17-24.

27. Osofsky HJ et al. Acad Psychiatry. 2016 Oct;40(5):747-54.

28. Dreier-Wolfgramm A et al. Z Gerontol Geriatr. 2017 May;50(Suppl 2):68-77.

29. Huang H and Barkil-Oteo A. Psychosomatics. 2015 Nov-Dec;56(6):658-61.

30. Raney L et al. Fam Syst Health. 2014 Jun;32(2):147-8.

31. Koola MM. Curr Psychiatr. 2016 Dec. 15(12):33-4.

32. Mental Health America. State of Mental Health in America 2020.

33. Curtin SC et al. NCHS Data Brief. 2016 Apr;(241):1-8.

34. Kelly DL et al. Ann Intern Med. 2020;172(2):167-8.

35. Miller JP and Nasrallah HA. Curr Psychiatr. 2015;14(12):45-6.

Dr. Koola is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral health at Stony Brook (N.Y.) University. His main area of interest is novel therapeutic discovery in the treatment of schizophrenia. He has a particular interest in improving the health care delivery system for people with psychiatric illness. Dr. Koola declared no conflicts of interest. He can be reached at maju.koola@stonybrook.edu.

*This commentary was updated 2/2/2020.

Emerging viruses that spread to humans from an animal host are commonplace and represent some of the deadliest diseases known. Given the details of the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, including the genetic profile of the disease agent, the hypothesis of a snake origin was the first raised in the peer-reviewed literature.

SISTEMA 12/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

It is a highly controversial origin story, however, given that mammals have been the sources of all other such zoonotic coronaviruses, as well as a host of other zoonotic diseases.

An animal source for emerging infections such as the 2019-nCoV is the default hypothesis, because “around 60% of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, as are 75% of all emerging infectious diseases,” according to a United Nations report. The report goes on to say that, “on average, one new infectious disease emerges in humans every 4 months.”

To appreciate the emergence and nature of 2019-nCoV, it is important to examine the history of zoonotic outbreaks of other such diseases, especially with regard to the “mixing-vessel” phenomenon, which has been noted in closely related coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS, as well as the widely disparate HIV, Ebola, and influenza viruses.
 

Mutants in the mixing vessel

The mixing-vessel phenomenon is conceptually easy but molecularly complex. A single animal is coinfected with two related viruses; the virus genomes recombine together (virus “sex”) in that animal to form a new variant of virus. Such new mutant viruses can be more or less infective, more or less deadly, and more or less able to jump the species or even genus barrier. An emerging viral zoonosis can occur when a human being is exposed to one of these new viruses (either from the origin species or another species intermediate) that is capable of also infecting a human cell. Such exposure can occur from close proximity to animal waste or body fluids, as in the farm environment, or from wildlife pets or the capturing and slaughtering of wildlife for food, as is proposed in the case of the Wuhan seafood market scenario. In fact, the scientists who postulated a snake intermediary as the potential mixing vessel also stated that 2019‐nCoV appears to be a recombinant virus between a bat coronavirus and an origin‐unknown coronavirus.

Coronaviruses in particular have a history of moving from animal to human hosts (and even back again), and their detailed genetic pattern and taxonomy can reveal the animal origin of these diseases.
 

Going batty

Bats, in particular, have been shown to be a reservoir species for both alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses. Given their ecology and behavior, they have been found to play a key role in transmitting coronaviruses between species. A highly pertinent example of this is the SARS coronavirus, which was shown to have likely originated in Chinese horseshoe bats. The SARS virus, which is genetically closely related to the new Wuhan coronavirus, first infected humans in the Guangdong province of southern China in 2002.

Scientists speculate that the virus was then either transmitted directly to humans from bats, or passed through an intermediate host species, with SARS-like viruses isolated from Himalayan palm civets found in a live-animal market in Guangdong. The virus infection was also detected in other animals (including a raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides) and in humans working at the market.

The MERS coronavirus is a betacoronavirus that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It turned out to be far more deadly than either SARS or the Wuhan virus (at least as far as current estimates of the new coronavirus’s behavior). The MERS genotype was found to be closely related to MERS-like viruses in bats in Saudi Arabia, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Studies done on the cell receptor for MERS showed an apparently conserved viral receptor in both bats and humans. And an identical strain of MERS was found in bats in a nearby cave and near the workplace of the first known human patient.

Wikimedia Commons/Mickey Samuni-Blank

However, in many of the other locations of the outbreak in the Middle East, there appeared to be limited contact between bats and humans, so scientists looked for another vector species, perhaps one that was acting as an intermediate. A high seroprevalence of MERS-CoV or a closely related virus was found in camels across the Arabian Peninsula and parts of eastern and northern Africa, while tests for MERS antibodies were negative in the most-likely other species of livestock or pet animals, including chickens, cows, goats, horses, and sheep.

In addition, the MERS-related CoV carried by camels was genetically highly similar to that detected in humans, as demonstrated in one particular outbreak on a farm in Qatar where the genetic sequences of MERS-CoV in the nasal swabs from 3 of 14 seropositive camels were similar to those of 2 human cases on the same farm. Similar genomic results were found in MERS-CoV from nasal swabs from camels in Saudi Arabia.
 

Other mixing-vessel zoonoses

HIV, the viral cause of AIDS, provides an almost-textbook origin story of the rise of a zoonotic supervillain. The virus was genetically traced to have a chimpanzee-to-human origin, but it was found to be more complicated than that. The virus first emerged in the 1920s in Africa in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, well before its rise to a global pandemic in the 1980s.

Researchers believe the chimpanzee virus is a hybrid of the simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) naturally infecting two different monkey species: the red-capped mangabey (Cercocebus torquatus) and the greater spot-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans). Chimpanzees kill and eat monkeys, which is likely how they acquired the monkey viruses. The viruses hybridized in a chimpanzee; the hybrid virus then spread through the chimpanzee population and was later transmitted to humans who captured and slaughtered chimps for meat (becoming exposed to their blood). This was the most likely origin of HIV-1.

HIV-1 also shows one of the major risks of zoonotic infections. They can continue to mutate in its human host, increasing the risk of greater virulence, but also interfering with the production of a universally effective vaccine. Since its transmission to humans, for example, many subtypes of the HIV-1 strain have developed, with genetic differences even in the same subtypes found to be up to 20%.

CDC/Frederick A. Murphy

Ebolavirus, first detected in 1976, is another case of bats being the potential culprit. Genetic analysis has shown that African fruit bats are likely involved in the spread of the virus and may be its reservoir host. Further evidence of this was found in the most recent human-infecting Bombali variant of the virus, which was identified in samples from bats collected from Sierra Leone.

It was also found that pigs can also become infected with Zaire ebolavirus, leading to the fear that pigs could serve as a mixing vessel for it and other filoviruses. Pigs have their own forms of Ebola-like disease viruses, which are not currently transmissible to humans, but could provide a potential mixing-vessel reservoir.
 

Emergent influenzas

The Western world has been most affected by these highly mutable, multispecies zoonotic viruses. The 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics contained a mixture of gene segments from human and avian influenza viruses. “What is clear from genetic analysis of the viruses that caused these past pandemics is that reassortment (gene swapping) occurred to produce novel influenza viruses that caused the pandemics. In both of these cases, the new viruses that emerged showed major differences from the parent viruses,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Influenza is, however, a good example that all zoonoses are not the result of a mixing-vessel phenomenon, with evidence showing that the origin of the catastrophic 1918 virus pandemic likely resulted from a bird influenza virus directly infecting humans and pigs at about the same time without reassortment, according to the CDC.
 

Building a protective infrastructure

The first 2 decades of the 21st century saw a huge increase in efforts to develop an infrastructure to monitor and potentially prevent the spread of new zoonoses. As part of a global effort led by the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International AID developed the PREDICT program in 2009 “to strengthen global capacity for detection and discovery of zoonotic viruses with pandemic potential. Those include coronaviruses, the family to which SARS and MERS belong; paramyxoviruses, like Nipah virus; influenza viruses; and filoviruses, like the ebolavirus.”

PREDICT funding to the EcoHealth Alliance led to discovery of the likely bat origins of the Zaire ebolavirus during the 2013-2016 outbreak. And throughout the existence of PREDICT, more than 145,000 animals and people were surveyed in areas of likely zoonotic outbreaks, leading to the detection of more than “1,100 unique viruses, including zoonotic diseases of public health concern such as Bombali ebolavirus, Zaire ebolavirus, Marburg virus, and MERS- and SARS-like coronaviruses,” according to PREDICT partner, the University of California, Davis.

PREDICT-2 was launched in 2014 with the continuing goals of “identifying and better characterizing pathogens of known epidemic and unknown pandemic potential; recognizing animal reservoirs and amplification hosts of human-infectious viruses; and efficiently targeting intervention action at human behaviors which amplify disease transmission at critical animal-animal and animal-human interfaces in hotspots of viral evolution, spillover, amplification, and spread.”

However, in October 2019, the Trump administration cut all funding to the PREDICT program, leading to its shutdown. In a New York Times interview, Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, stated: “PREDICT was an approach to heading off pandemics, instead of sitting there waiting for them to emerge and then mobilizing.”

Ultimately, in addition to its human cost, the current Wuhan coronavirus outbreak can be looked at an object lesson – a test of the pandemic surveillance and control systems currently in place, and a practice run for the next and potentially deadlier zoonotic outbreaks to come. Perhaps it is also a reminder that cutting resources to detect zoonoses at their source in their animal hosts – before they enter the human chain– is perhaps not the most prudent of ideas.

mlesney@mdedge.com

Mark Lesney is the managing editor of MDedge.com/IDPractioner. He has a PhD in plant virology and a PhD in the history of science, with a focus on the history of biotechnology and medicine. He has served as an adjunct assistant professor of the department of biochemistry and molecular & celluar biology at Georgetown University, Washington.

Emerging viruses that spread to humans from an animal host are commonplace and represent some of the deadliest diseases known. Given the details of the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, including the genetic profile of the disease agent, the hypothesis of a snake origin was the first raised in the peer-reviewed literature.

SISTEMA 12/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

It is a highly controversial origin story, however, given that mammals have been the sources of all other such zoonotic coronaviruses, as well as a host of other zoonotic diseases.

An animal source for emerging infections such as the 2019-nCoV is the default hypothesis, because “around 60% of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, as are 75% of all emerging infectious diseases,” according to a United Nations report. The report goes on to say that, “on average, one new infectious disease emerges in humans every 4 months.”

To appreciate the emergence and nature of 2019-nCoV, it is important to examine the history of zoonotic outbreaks of other such diseases, especially with regard to the “mixing-vessel” phenomenon, which has been noted in closely related coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS, as well as the widely disparate HIV, Ebola, and influenza viruses.
 

Mutants in the mixing vessel

The mixing-vessel phenomenon is conceptually easy but molecularly complex. A single animal is coinfected with two related viruses; the virus genomes recombine together (virus “sex”) in that animal to form a new variant of virus. Such new mutant viruses can be more or less infective, more or less deadly, and more or less able to jump the species or even genus barrier. An emerging viral zoonosis can occur when a human being is exposed to one of these new viruses (either from the origin species or another species intermediate) that is capable of also infecting a human cell. Such exposure can occur from close proximity to animal waste or body fluids, as in the farm environment, or from wildlife pets or the capturing and slaughtering of wildlife for food, as is proposed in the case of the Wuhan seafood market scenario. In fact, the scientists who postulated a snake intermediary as the potential mixing vessel also stated that 2019‐nCoV appears to be a recombinant virus between a bat coronavirus and an origin‐unknown coronavirus.

Coronaviruses in particular have a history of moving from animal to human hosts (and even back again), and their detailed genetic pattern and taxonomy can reveal the animal origin of these diseases.
 

Going batty

Bats, in particular, have been shown to be a reservoir species for both alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses. Given their ecology and behavior, they have been found to play a key role in transmitting coronaviruses between species. A highly pertinent example of this is the SARS coronavirus, which was shown to have likely originated in Chinese horseshoe bats. The SARS virus, which is genetically closely related to the new Wuhan coronavirus, first infected humans in the Guangdong province of southern China in 2002.

Scientists speculate that the virus was then either transmitted directly to humans from bats, or passed through an intermediate host species, with SARS-like viruses isolated from Himalayan palm civets found in a live-animal market in Guangdong. The virus infection was also detected in other animals (including a raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides) and in humans working at the market.

The MERS coronavirus is a betacoronavirus that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It turned out to be far more deadly than either SARS or the Wuhan virus (at least as far as current estimates of the new coronavirus’s behavior). The MERS genotype was found to be closely related to MERS-like viruses in bats in Saudi Arabia, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Studies done on the cell receptor for MERS showed an apparently conserved viral receptor in both bats and humans. And an identical strain of MERS was found in bats in a nearby cave and near the workplace of the first known human patient.

Wikimedia Commons/Mickey Samuni-Blank

However, in many of the other locations of the outbreak in the Middle East, there appeared to be limited contact between bats and humans, so scientists looked for another vector species, perhaps one that was acting as an intermediate. A high seroprevalence of MERS-CoV or a closely related virus was found in camels across the Arabian Peninsula and parts of eastern and northern Africa, while tests for MERS antibodies were negative in the most-likely other species of livestock or pet animals, including chickens, cows, goats, horses, and sheep.

In addition, the MERS-related CoV carried by camels was genetically highly similar to that detected in humans, as demonstrated in one particular outbreak on a farm in Qatar where the genetic sequences of MERS-CoV in the nasal swabs from 3 of 14 seropositive camels were similar to those of 2 human cases on the same farm. Similar genomic results were found in MERS-CoV from nasal swabs from camels in Saudi Arabia.
 

Other mixing-vessel zoonoses

HIV, the viral cause of AIDS, provides an almost-textbook origin story of the rise of a zoonotic supervillain. The virus was genetically traced to have a chimpanzee-to-human origin, but it was found to be more complicated than that. The virus first emerged in the 1920s in Africa in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, well before its rise to a global pandemic in the 1980s.

Researchers believe the chimpanzee virus is a hybrid of the simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) naturally infecting two different monkey species: the red-capped mangabey (Cercocebus torquatus) and the greater spot-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans). Chimpanzees kill and eat monkeys, which is likely how they acquired the monkey viruses. The viruses hybridized in a chimpanzee; the hybrid virus then spread through the chimpanzee population and was later transmitted to humans who captured and slaughtered chimps for meat (becoming exposed to their blood). This was the most likely origin of HIV-1.

HIV-1 also shows one of the major risks of zoonotic infections. They can continue to mutate in its human host, increasing the risk of greater virulence, but also interfering with the production of a universally effective vaccine. Since its transmission to humans, for example, many subtypes of the HIV-1 strain have developed, with genetic differences even in the same subtypes found to be up to 20%.

CDC/Frederick A. Murphy

Ebolavirus, first detected in 1976, is another case of bats being the potential culprit. Genetic analysis has shown that African fruit bats are likely involved in the spread of the virus and may be its reservoir host. Further evidence of this was found in the most recent human-infecting Bombali variant of the virus, which was identified in samples from bats collected from Sierra Leone.

It was also found that pigs can also become infected with Zaire ebolavirus, leading to the fear that pigs could serve as a mixing vessel for it and other filoviruses. Pigs have their own forms of Ebola-like disease viruses, which are not currently transmissible to humans, but could provide a potential mixing-vessel reservoir.
 

Emergent influenzas

The Western world has been most affected by these highly mutable, multispecies zoonotic viruses. The 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics contained a mixture of gene segments from human and avian influenza viruses. “What is clear from genetic analysis of the viruses that caused these past pandemics is that reassortment (gene swapping) occurred to produce novel influenza viruses that caused the pandemics. In both of these cases, the new viruses that emerged showed major differences from the parent viruses,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Influenza is, however, a good example that all zoonoses are not the result of a mixing-vessel phenomenon, with evidence showing that the origin of the catastrophic 1918 virus pandemic likely resulted from a bird influenza virus directly infecting humans and pigs at about the same time without reassortment, according to the CDC.
 

Building a protective infrastructure

The first 2 decades of the 21st century saw a huge increase in efforts to develop an infrastructure to monitor and potentially prevent the spread of new zoonoses. As part of a global effort led by the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International AID developed the PREDICT program in 2009 “to strengthen global capacity for detection and discovery of zoonotic viruses with pandemic potential. Those include coronaviruses, the family to which SARS and MERS belong; paramyxoviruses, like Nipah virus; influenza viruses; and filoviruses, like the ebolavirus.”

PREDICT funding to the EcoHealth Alliance led to discovery of the likely bat origins of the Zaire ebolavirus during the 2013-2016 outbreak. And throughout the existence of PREDICT, more than 145,000 animals and people were surveyed in areas of likely zoonotic outbreaks, leading to the detection of more than “1,100 unique viruses, including zoonotic diseases of public health concern such as Bombali ebolavirus, Zaire ebolavirus, Marburg virus, and MERS- and SARS-like coronaviruses,” according to PREDICT partner, the University of California, Davis.

PREDICT-2 was launched in 2014 with the continuing goals of “identifying and better characterizing pathogens of known epidemic and unknown pandemic potential; recognizing animal reservoirs and amplification hosts of human-infectious viruses; and efficiently targeting intervention action at human behaviors which amplify disease transmission at critical animal-animal and animal-human interfaces in hotspots of viral evolution, spillover, amplification, and spread.”

However, in October 2019, the Trump administration cut all funding to the PREDICT program, leading to its shutdown. In a New York Times interview, Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, stated: “PREDICT was an approach to heading off pandemics, instead of sitting there waiting for them to emerge and then mobilizing.”

Ultimately, in addition to its human cost, the current Wuhan coronavirus outbreak can be looked at an object lesson – a test of the pandemic surveillance and control systems currently in place, and a practice run for the next and potentially deadlier zoonotic outbreaks to come. Perhaps it is also a reminder that cutting resources to detect zoonoses at their source in their animal hosts – before they enter the human chain– is perhaps not the most prudent of ideas.

mlesney@mdedge.com

Mark Lesney is the managing editor of MDedge.com/IDPractioner. He has a PhD in plant virology and a PhD in the history of science, with a focus on the history of biotechnology and medicine. He has served as an adjunct assistant professor of the department of biochemistry and molecular & celluar biology at Georgetown University, Washington.

Emerging viruses that spread to humans from an animal host are commonplace and represent some of the deadliest diseases known. Given the details of the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, including the genetic profile of the disease agent, the hypothesis of a snake origin was the first raised in the peer-reviewed literature.

SISTEMA 12/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

It is a highly controversial origin story, however, given that mammals have been the sources of all other such zoonotic coronaviruses, as well as a host of other zoonotic diseases.

An animal source for emerging infections such as the 2019-nCoV is the default hypothesis, because “around 60% of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, as are 75% of all emerging infectious diseases,” according to a United Nations report. The report goes on to say that, “on average, one new infectious disease emerges in humans every 4 months.”

To appreciate the emergence and nature of 2019-nCoV, it is important to examine the history of zoonotic outbreaks of other such diseases, especially with regard to the “mixing-vessel” phenomenon, which has been noted in closely related coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS, as well as the widely disparate HIV, Ebola, and influenza viruses.
 

Mutants in the mixing vessel

The mixing-vessel phenomenon is conceptually easy but molecularly complex. A single animal is coinfected with two related viruses; the virus genomes recombine together (virus “sex”) in that animal to form a new variant of virus. Such new mutant viruses can be more or less infective, more or less deadly, and more or less able to jump the species or even genus barrier. An emerging viral zoonosis can occur when a human being is exposed to one of these new viruses (either from the origin species or another species intermediate) that is capable of also infecting a human cell. Such exposure can occur from close proximity to animal waste or body fluids, as in the farm environment, or from wildlife pets or the capturing and slaughtering of wildlife for food, as is proposed in the case of the Wuhan seafood market scenario. In fact, the scientists who postulated a snake intermediary as the potential mixing vessel also stated that 2019‐nCoV appears to be a recombinant virus between a bat coronavirus and an origin‐unknown coronavirus.

Coronaviruses in particular have a history of moving from animal to human hosts (and even back again), and their detailed genetic pattern and taxonomy can reveal the animal origin of these diseases.
 

Going batty

Bats, in particular, have been shown to be a reservoir species for both alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses. Given their ecology and behavior, they have been found to play a key role in transmitting coronaviruses between species. A highly pertinent example of this is the SARS coronavirus, which was shown to have likely originated in Chinese horseshoe bats. The SARS virus, which is genetically closely related to the new Wuhan coronavirus, first infected humans in the Guangdong province of southern China in 2002.

Scientists speculate that the virus was then either transmitted directly to humans from bats, or passed through an intermediate host species, with SARS-like viruses isolated from Himalayan palm civets found in a live-animal market in Guangdong. The virus infection was also detected in other animals (including a raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides) and in humans working at the market.

The MERS coronavirus is a betacoronavirus that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It turned out to be far more deadly than either SARS or the Wuhan virus (at least as far as current estimates of the new coronavirus’s behavior). The MERS genotype was found to be closely related to MERS-like viruses in bats in Saudi Arabia, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Studies done on the cell receptor for MERS showed an apparently conserved viral receptor in both bats and humans. And an identical strain of MERS was found in bats in a nearby cave and near the workplace of the first known human patient.

Wikimedia Commons/Mickey Samuni-Blank

However, in many of the other locations of the outbreak in the Middle East, there appeared to be limited contact between bats and humans, so scientists looked for another vector species, perhaps one that was acting as an intermediate. A high seroprevalence of MERS-CoV or a closely related virus was found in camels across the Arabian Peninsula and parts of eastern and northern Africa, while tests for MERS antibodies were negative in the most-likely other species of livestock or pet animals, including chickens, cows, goats, horses, and sheep.

In addition, the MERS-related CoV carried by camels was genetically highly similar to that detected in humans, as demonstrated in one particular outbreak on a farm in Qatar where the genetic sequences of MERS-CoV in the nasal swabs from 3 of 14 seropositive camels were similar to those of 2 human cases on the same farm. Similar genomic results were found in MERS-CoV from nasal swabs from camels in Saudi Arabia.
 

Other mixing-vessel zoonoses

HIV, the viral cause of AIDS, provides an almost-textbook origin story of the rise of a zoonotic supervillain. The virus was genetically traced to have a chimpanzee-to-human origin, but it was found to be more complicated than that. The virus first emerged in the 1920s in Africa in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, well before its rise to a global pandemic in the 1980s.

Researchers believe the chimpanzee virus is a hybrid of the simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) naturally infecting two different monkey species: the red-capped mangabey (Cercocebus torquatus) and the greater spot-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans). Chimpanzees kill and eat monkeys, which is likely how they acquired the monkey viruses. The viruses hybridized in a chimpanzee; the hybrid virus then spread through the chimpanzee population and was later transmitted to humans who captured and slaughtered chimps for meat (becoming exposed to their blood). This was the most likely origin of HIV-1.

HIV-1 also shows one of the major risks of zoonotic infections. They can continue to mutate in its human host, increasing the risk of greater virulence, but also interfering with the production of a universally effective vaccine. Since its transmission to humans, for example, many subtypes of the HIV-1 strain have developed, with genetic differences even in the same subtypes found to be up to 20%.

CDC/Frederick A. Murphy

Ebolavirus, first detected in 1976, is another case of bats being the potential culprit. Genetic analysis has shown that African fruit bats are likely involved in the spread of the virus and may be its reservoir host. Further evidence of this was found in the most recent human-infecting Bombali variant of the virus, which was identified in samples from bats collected from Sierra Leone.

It was also found that pigs can also become infected with Zaire ebolavirus, leading to the fear that pigs could serve as a mixing vessel for it and other filoviruses. Pigs have their own forms of Ebola-like disease viruses, which are not currently transmissible to humans, but could provide a potential mixing-vessel reservoir.
 

Emergent influenzas

The Western world has been most affected by these highly mutable, multispecies zoonotic viruses. The 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics contained a mixture of gene segments from human and avian influenza viruses. “What is clear from genetic analysis of the viruses that caused these past pandemics is that reassortment (gene swapping) occurred to produce novel influenza viruses that caused the pandemics. In both of these cases, the new viruses that emerged showed major differences from the parent viruses,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Influenza is, however, a good example that all zoonoses are not the result of a mixing-vessel phenomenon, with evidence showing that the origin of the catastrophic 1918 virus pandemic likely resulted from a bird influenza virus directly infecting humans and pigs at about the same time without reassortment, according to the CDC.
 

Building a protective infrastructure

The first 2 decades of the 21st century saw a huge increase in efforts to develop an infrastructure to monitor and potentially prevent the spread of new zoonoses. As part of a global effort led by the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International AID developed the PREDICT program in 2009 “to strengthen global capacity for detection and discovery of zoonotic viruses with pandemic potential. Those include coronaviruses, the family to which SARS and MERS belong; paramyxoviruses, like Nipah virus; influenza viruses; and filoviruses, like the ebolavirus.”

PREDICT funding to the EcoHealth Alliance led to discovery of the likely bat origins of the Zaire ebolavirus during the 2013-2016 outbreak. And throughout the existence of PREDICT, more than 145,000 animals and people were surveyed in areas of likely zoonotic outbreaks, leading to the detection of more than “1,100 unique viruses, including zoonotic diseases of public health concern such as Bombali ebolavirus, Zaire ebolavirus, Marburg virus, and MERS- and SARS-like coronaviruses,” according to PREDICT partner, the University of California, Davis.

PREDICT-2 was launched in 2014 with the continuing goals of “identifying and better characterizing pathogens of known epidemic and unknown pandemic potential; recognizing animal reservoirs and amplification hosts of human-infectious viruses; and efficiently targeting intervention action at human behaviors which amplify disease transmission at critical animal-animal and animal-human interfaces in hotspots of viral evolution, spillover, amplification, and spread.”

However, in October 2019, the Trump administration cut all funding to the PREDICT program, leading to its shutdown. In a New York Times interview, Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, stated: “PREDICT was an approach to heading off pandemics, instead of sitting there waiting for them to emerge and then mobilizing.”

Ultimately, in addition to its human cost, the current Wuhan coronavirus outbreak can be looked at an object lesson – a test of the pandemic surveillance and control systems currently in place, and a practice run for the next and potentially deadlier zoonotic outbreaks to come. Perhaps it is also a reminder that cutting resources to detect zoonoses at their source in their animal hosts – before they enter the human chain– is perhaps not the most prudent of ideas.

mlesney@mdedge.com

Mark Lesney is the managing editor of MDedge.com/IDPractioner. He has a PhD in plant virology and a PhD in the history of science, with a focus on the history of biotechnology and medicine. He has served as an adjunct assistant professor of the department of biochemistry and molecular & celluar biology at Georgetown University, Washington.

According to the DSM-V, gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults “involves a difference between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, and significant distress or problems functioning. It lasts at least 6 months,” and several other criteria must be met.¹ Many patients with gender dysphoria also identify as transgender. A “transition” or “transitioning” is a process by which individuals come to inhabit their gender identity.² A gender transition may take many forms, and only some people will choose to include medical assistance in their transition process. Although the scope of this article will not address these concerns, it should be noted that many people in the transgender and gender nonconforming community would object to the concepts of gender dysphoria and gender transition because they rely on a binary model of gender that may exclude individuals that see themselves as something other than “man or woman.”

sturti/Getty Images

There are both medical and surgical options for medical assistance in a gender transition. This article will focus on the surgical care of patients assigned female at birth who are seeking masculinizing surgical therapy. Many writers will discuss “gender-affirming” surgery, but we will use the term “gender-reaffirming” surgery because transgender patients have already affirmed their own genders and do not require surgery to inhabit this affirmation. Surgical options might include bilateral mastectomy, hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO), metoidioplasty (surgical formation of a neophallus with existing genital tissue), or phalloplasty. There currently is no single surgical subspecialty that encompasses training in all forms of gender-reaffirming surgical therapies. In some areas of the country, centers of excellence have given rise to multidisciplinary teams that combine the skill sets of surgical subspecialists to provide a streamlined approach to gender-reaffirming surgery. Because of the scarcity of these integrated centers, most patients seeking gender-reaffirming surgeries will need to find individual subspecialists whose surgical training focuses on one area of the body. For example, patients seeking all possible surgical options may need a breast surgeon to perform their mastectomy, an ob.gyn. to perform their hysterectomy and BSO, a urologist to perform their metoidioplasty, and a plastic surgeon to perform their phalloplasty. In these scenarios, a general ob.gyn. may be consulted to perform a gender-reaffirming hysterectomy with BSO.

There are many reasons why transgender men might desire hysterectomy/BSO as part of their transition. Removal of the uterus and cervix eliminates concerns surrounding menstruation, pregnancy, and cervical cancer screening, all of which may add to their experience of gender dysphoria. Furthermore, removal of the ovaries may simplify long-term hormonal therapy with testosterone by eliminating the need for estrogen suppression. Lastly, a hysterectomy/BSO is a lower-risk and more cost-effective masculinizing surgery, compared with metoidioplasty or phalloplasty.

While the technical aspect of performing a hysterectomy/BSO certainly is within the scope of training for a general ob.gyn., there are several nuances of which providers should be aware when planning gender-reaffirming surgery for a transgender man. During the preoperative planning phase, it is of utmost importance to provide an environment of safety so that the focus of the preop visit is not clouded by communication mishaps between office staff and the patient. These barriers can be avoided by implementing office intake forms that give patients the opportunity to inform the health care team of their chosen name and personal pronouns upon registration for the visit.

A pelvic exam is commonly performed by ob.gyns. to determine surgical approach for a hysterectomy/BSO. When approaching transgender male patients for preoperative pelvic exams, it is important to be mindful of the fact that this type of exam may trigger gender dysphoria. While pelvic exams should be handled in sensitive fashion regardless of a patient’s gender identity, a patient who is a transgender man may benefit from some added steps in discussing the pelvic exam. One approach is to acknowledge that these exams/discussions may be especially triggering of gender dysphoria, and ask if the patient would prefer certain words to be used or not used in reference to their anatomy. As with any patient, the provider should explain the purpose of the examination and offer opportunities for the patient to have some control in the exam such as by assisting with insertion of the speculum or designating a “safe word” that would signal the provider to stop or pause the exam. In some cases, patients may not be able to tolerate the pelvic exam while awake because of the degree of gender dysphoria that the exam would induce. Providers might consider noninvasive imaging studies to help with surgical planning if they find they need more information before scheduling the operation, or they may offer a staged procedure with exam under anesthesia prior to the definitive surgery.

In conclusion, performing a gender-reaffirming hysterectomy/BSO requires thoughtful preparation to ensure a safe surgical environment for this vulnerable population. Care should be taken to plan the operation with a culturally sensitive approach.

Dr. Joyner is an assistant professor at Emory University, and is the director of gynecologic services in the Gender Center at Grady Memorial Hospital, both in Atlanta. Dr. Joyner identifies as a cisgender female and uses she/hers/her as her personal pronouns. Dr. Joey Bahng is a PGY-1 resident physician in Emory University’s gynecology & obstetrics residency program. Dr. Bahng identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them/their as their personal pronouns. Dr. Joyner and Dr. Bahng reported no relevant financial disclosures.

References

1. American Psychiatric Association. What is Gender Dysphoria? https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

2. UCSF Transgender Care. Transition Roadmap. https://transcare.ucsf.edu/transition-roadmap

According to the DSM-V, gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults “involves a difference between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, and significant distress or problems functioning. It lasts at least 6 months,” and several other criteria must be met.¹ Many patients with gender dysphoria also identify as transgender. A “transition” or “transitioning” is a process by which individuals come to inhabit their gender identity.² A gender transition may take many forms, and only some people will choose to include medical assistance in their transition process. Although the scope of this article will not address these concerns, it should be noted that many people in the transgender and gender nonconforming community would object to the concepts of gender dysphoria and gender transition because they rely on a binary model of gender that may exclude individuals that see themselves as something other than “man or woman.”

sturti/Getty Images

There are both medical and surgical options for medical assistance in a gender transition. This article will focus on the surgical care of patients assigned female at birth who are seeking masculinizing surgical therapy. Many writers will discuss “gender-affirming” surgery, but we will use the term “gender-reaffirming” surgery because transgender patients have already affirmed their own genders and do not require surgery to inhabit this affirmation. Surgical options might include bilateral mastectomy, hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO), metoidioplasty (surgical formation of a neophallus with existing genital tissue), or phalloplasty. There currently is no single surgical subspecialty that encompasses training in all forms of gender-reaffirming surgical therapies. In some areas of the country, centers of excellence have given rise to multidisciplinary teams that combine the skill sets of surgical subspecialists to provide a streamlined approach to gender-reaffirming surgery. Because of the scarcity of these integrated centers, most patients seeking gender-reaffirming surgeries will need to find individual subspecialists whose surgical training focuses on one area of the body. For example, patients seeking all possible surgical options may need a breast surgeon to perform their mastectomy, an ob.gyn. to perform their hysterectomy and BSO, a urologist to perform their metoidioplasty, and a plastic surgeon to perform their phalloplasty. In these scenarios, a general ob.gyn. may be consulted to perform a gender-reaffirming hysterectomy with BSO.

There are many reasons why transgender men might desire hysterectomy/BSO as part of their transition. Removal of the uterus and cervix eliminates concerns surrounding menstruation, pregnancy, and cervical cancer screening, all of which may add to their experience of gender dysphoria. Furthermore, removal of the ovaries may simplify long-term hormonal therapy with testosterone by eliminating the need for estrogen suppression. Lastly, a hysterectomy/BSO is a lower-risk and more cost-effective masculinizing surgery, compared with metoidioplasty or phalloplasty.

While the technical aspect of performing a hysterectomy/BSO certainly is within the scope of training for a general ob.gyn., there are several nuances of which providers should be aware when planning gender-reaffirming surgery for a transgender man. During the preoperative planning phase, it is of utmost importance to provide an environment of safety so that the focus of the preop visit is not clouded by communication mishaps between office staff and the patient. These barriers can be avoided by implementing office intake forms that give patients the opportunity to inform the health care team of their chosen name and personal pronouns upon registration for the visit.

A pelvic exam is commonly performed by ob.gyns. to determine surgical approach for a hysterectomy/BSO. When approaching transgender male patients for preoperative pelvic exams, it is important to be mindful of the fact that this type of exam may trigger gender dysphoria. While pelvic exams should be handled in sensitive fashion regardless of a patient’s gender identity, a patient who is a transgender man may benefit from some added steps in discussing the pelvic exam. One approach is to acknowledge that these exams/discussions may be especially triggering of gender dysphoria, and ask if the patient would prefer certain words to be used or not used in reference to their anatomy. As with any patient, the provider should explain the purpose of the examination and offer opportunities for the patient to have some control in the exam such as by assisting with insertion of the speculum or designating a “safe word” that would signal the provider to stop or pause the exam. In some cases, patients may not be able to tolerate the pelvic exam while awake because of the degree of gender dysphoria that the exam would induce. Providers might consider noninvasive imaging studies to help with surgical planning if they find they need more information before scheduling the operation, or they may offer a staged procedure with exam under anesthesia prior to the definitive surgery.

In conclusion, performing a gender-reaffirming hysterectomy/BSO requires thoughtful preparation to ensure a safe surgical environment for this vulnerable population. Care should be taken to plan the operation with a culturally sensitive approach.

Dr. Joyner is an assistant professor at Emory University, and is the director of gynecologic services in the Gender Center at Grady Memorial Hospital, both in Atlanta. Dr. Joyner identifies as a cisgender female and uses she/hers/her as her personal pronouns. Dr. Joey Bahng is a PGY-1 resident physician in Emory University’s gynecology & obstetrics residency program. Dr. Bahng identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them/their as their personal pronouns. Dr. Joyner and Dr. Bahng reported no relevant financial disclosures.

References

1. American Psychiatric Association. What is Gender Dysphoria? https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

2. UCSF Transgender Care. Transition Roadmap. https://transcare.ucsf.edu/transition-roadmap

According to the DSM-V, gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults “involves a difference between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, and significant distress or problems functioning. It lasts at least 6 months,” and several other criteria must be met.¹ Many patients with gender dysphoria also identify as transgender. A “transition” or “transitioning” is a process by which individuals come to inhabit their gender identity.² A gender transition may take many forms, and only some people will choose to include medical assistance in their transition process. Although the scope of this article will not address these concerns, it should be noted that many people in the transgender and gender nonconforming community would object to the concepts of gender dysphoria and gender transition because they rely on a binary model of gender that may exclude individuals that see themselves as something other than “man or woman.”

sturti/Getty Images

There are both medical and surgical options for medical assistance in a gender transition. This article will focus on the surgical care of patients assigned female at birth who are seeking masculinizing surgical therapy. Many writers will discuss “gender-affirming” surgery, but we will use the term “gender-reaffirming” surgery because transgender patients have already affirmed their own genders and do not require surgery to inhabit this affirmation. Surgical options might include bilateral mastectomy, hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO), metoidioplasty (surgical formation of a neophallus with existing genital tissue), or phalloplasty. There currently is no single surgical subspecialty that encompasses training in all forms of gender-reaffirming surgical therapies. In some areas of the country, centers of excellence have given rise to multidisciplinary teams that combine the skill sets of surgical subspecialists to provide a streamlined approach to gender-reaffirming surgery. Because of the scarcity of these integrated centers, most patients seeking gender-reaffirming surgeries will need to find individual subspecialists whose surgical training focuses on one area of the body. For example, patients seeking all possible surgical options may need a breast surgeon to perform their mastectomy, an ob.gyn. to perform their hysterectomy and BSO, a urologist to perform their metoidioplasty, and a plastic surgeon to perform their phalloplasty. In these scenarios, a general ob.gyn. may be consulted to perform a gender-reaffirming hysterectomy with BSO.

There are many reasons why transgender men might desire hysterectomy/BSO as part of their transition. Removal of the uterus and cervix eliminates concerns surrounding menstruation, pregnancy, and cervical cancer screening, all of which may add to their experience of gender dysphoria. Furthermore, removal of the ovaries may simplify long-term hormonal therapy with testosterone by eliminating the need for estrogen suppression. Lastly, a hysterectomy/BSO is a lower-risk and more cost-effective masculinizing surgery, compared with metoidioplasty or phalloplasty.

While the technical aspect of performing a hysterectomy/BSO certainly is within the scope of training for a general ob.gyn., there are several nuances of which providers should be aware when planning gender-reaffirming surgery for a transgender man. During the preoperative planning phase, it is of utmost importance to provide an environment of safety so that the focus of the preop visit is not clouded by communication mishaps between office staff and the patient. These barriers can be avoided by implementing office intake forms that give patients the opportunity to inform the health care team of their chosen name and personal pronouns upon registration for the visit.

A pelvic exam is commonly performed by ob.gyns. to determine surgical approach for a hysterectomy/BSO. When approaching transgender male patients for preoperative pelvic exams, it is important to be mindful of the fact that this type of exam may trigger gender dysphoria. While pelvic exams should be handled in sensitive fashion regardless of a patient’s gender identity, a patient who is a transgender man may benefit from some added steps in discussing the pelvic exam. One approach is to acknowledge that these exams/discussions may be especially triggering of gender dysphoria, and ask if the patient would prefer certain words to be used or not used in reference to their anatomy. As with any patient, the provider should explain the purpose of the examination and offer opportunities for the patient to have some control in the exam such as by assisting with insertion of the speculum or designating a “safe word” that would signal the provider to stop or pause the exam. In some cases, patients may not be able to tolerate the pelvic exam while awake because of the degree of gender dysphoria that the exam would induce. Providers might consider noninvasive imaging studies to help with surgical planning if they find they need more information before scheduling the operation, or they may offer a staged procedure with exam under anesthesia prior to the definitive surgery.

In conclusion, performing a gender-reaffirming hysterectomy/BSO requires thoughtful preparation to ensure a safe surgical environment for this vulnerable population. Care should be taken to plan the operation with a culturally sensitive approach.

Dr. Joyner is an assistant professor at Emory University, and is the director of gynecologic services in the Gender Center at Grady Memorial Hospital, both in Atlanta. Dr. Joyner identifies as a cisgender female and uses she/hers/her as her personal pronouns. Dr. Joey Bahng is a PGY-1 resident physician in Emory University’s gynecology & obstetrics residency program. Dr. Bahng identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them/their as their personal pronouns. Dr. Joyner and Dr. Bahng reported no relevant financial disclosures.

References

1. American Psychiatric Association. What is Gender Dysphoria? https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

2. UCSF Transgender Care. Transition Roadmap. https://transcare.ucsf.edu/transition-roadmap

Molar pregnancy is an uncommon but serious condition that affects young women of reproductive age. The diagnosis and management of molar pregnancy is familiar to most gynecologists. However, in the days and weeks following evacuation of molar pregnancy, clinicians face a critical time period in which they must be vigilant for the development of postmolar gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN). If recognized early and treated appropriately, it almost always can be cured; however, errors or delays in the management of this condition can have catastrophic consequences for patients, including decreasing the likelihood of cure. Here we will review some of the steps and actions that can be taken immediately following the diagnosis of a molar pregnancy to expeditiously identify postmolar GTN and ensure patients are appropriately prepared for further consultation and intervention.

Postmolar GTN includes the diagnoses of invasive mole and choriocarcinoma that contain highly atypical trophoblasts with the capacity for local invasion and metastasis. Typically, the diagnosis is made clinically and not distinguished with histology. While molar pregnancies are a benign condition, invasive moles and choriocarcinoma are malignant conditions in which the molar tissue infiltrates the uterine myometrium, vasculature, and frequently is associated with hematogenous spread with distant metastases. It is a highly chemosensitive disease, and cure with chemotherapy typically is achieved with the ability to preserve fertility if desired even in advanced stage disease.¹

After evacuation of a molar pregnancy, gynecologists should be on alert for the development of postmolar GTN if the following known risk factors are present: a history of a prior GTN diagnosis, complete mole on pathology (as opposed to partial mole), serum human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) levels greater than 100,000 mIU/mL, age greater than 40 years, an enlarged uterus or large ovarian theca lutein cysts, and slow to normalize (more than 2 months) hCG. Symptoms for the development of postmolar GTN include persistent vaginal bleeding after evacuation, a persistently enlarged or enlarging uterine size, and adnexal masses. Ultimately, the diagnosis is made through plateaued or rising serum hCG assessments.² (See graphic.)

Following the evacuation of a molar pregnancy, hCG levels should be drawn at the same laboratory every 1-2 weeks until normalization and then three consecutive normal values. Once this has been achieved, hCG levels should be tested once at 3 months and again at 6 months. During this 6 month period, patients should use reliable contraception, ideally, and through oral contraceptive pills that suppress the secretion of pituitary hCG if not contraindicated. Should a woman become pregnant during this 6-month surveillance, it becomes impossible to rule out occult postmolar GTN.

Typically after evacuation of a molar pregnancy, there is rapid fall in hCG levels, but this does not occur when the molar pregnancy has become invasive or is associated with choriocarcinoma. In these cases, after an initial drop in hCG levels, there is an observed rise or plateau in levels (as defined in the accompanying table), and this establishes the diagnosis of postmolar GTN. It is common for hCG to fall in fits and starts, rather than have a smooth, consistent diminution, and this can be worrying for gynecologists; however, provided there is a consistent reduction in values in accordance with the stated definitions, observation can continue.

Another source of confusion and concern is an HCG level that fails to completely normalize during observation, yet reaches a very low level. If this is observed, clinicians should consider the diagnosis of quiescent hCG, pituitary hCG, or phantom hCG.³ These can be difficult to distinguish from postmolar GTN, and consultation with a gynecologic oncologist with experience in the diagnosis and management of these rare tumors is helpful to determine if the persistent low levels in hCG require intervention.

Once a clinician has observed a plateau or rise in hCG levels, a gynecologic examination should be performed because the lower genital tract is a common site for metastatic postmolar GTN. If during this evaluation, a suspicious lesion is identified (typically a blue-black, slightly raised, hemorrhagic-appearing lesion), it should not be biopsied, but rather assumed to be a metastatic site. The vasculature of metastatic sites is extremely fragile, and biopsy or disruption can result in catastrophic hemorrhage, even from very small lesions.

In addition to physical examination, several diagnostic studies should be performed which may expedite the triage and management of the case. A pelvic ultrasound should evaluate the endometrial cavity for a new viable pregnancy, and residual molar tissue; sometimes, myometrial invasion consistent with an invasive mole can be appreciated. Chest x-ray or CT scan should be ordered to evaluate for pulmonary metastatic lesions. Additionally, CT scans of the abdomen and pelvis should be ordered, and if lung metastases are present, brain imaging with either MRI or CT scan also should be obtained. These imaging studies will provide the necessary information to stage the GTN (as metastatic or not).

Treatment for postmolar GTN is determined based on further prognostic categorization (“high risk” or “low risk”) in accordance with the WHO classification, which is derived using several prognostic clinical variables including age, antecedent pregnancy, interval from index pregnancy, pretreatment hCG, largest tumor size, sites and number of metastases, and response to previous chemotherapy.⁴ These assignments are necessary to determine whether single-agent or multiagent chemotherapy should be prescribed.

Laboratory studies are helpful to obtain at this time and include metabolic panels (which can ensure that renal and hepatic function are within normal limits in anticipation of future chemotherapy), and complete blood count ,which can establish viable bone marrow function prior to chemotherapy.

Once postmolar GTN has been diagnosed, it is most appropriate to refer the patient to a gynecologic oncologist with experience in the treatment of these relatively rare malignancies. At that point, the patient will be formally staged, and offered treatment based on these staging results.

Among women with low-risk, nonmetastatic GTN who desire future fertility it is appropriate to offer a repeat dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure rather than immediately proceeding with chemotherapy. Approximately two-thirds of women with low risk disease can avoid chemotherapy with repeat curettage.⁵ Risk factors for needing chemotherapy after repeat D&C include the presence of trophoblastic disease in the pathology specimen and urinary hCG levels greater than 1,500 mIU/mL at the time of curettage. In my experience, many women appreciate this option to potentially avoid toxic chemotherapy.

For women with low-risk, nonmetastatic postmolar GTN who do not desire future fertility, and hope to avoid chemotherapy, hysterectomy also is a reasonable first option. This can be performed via either minimally invasive, laparotomy, or vaginal route. If performing a minimally invasive procedure in the setting of GTN, there should be caution or avoidance of use of a uterine manipulator because the uterine wall typically is soft and prone to perforation, and bleeding can be significant secondary to disruption of the tumor.

If repeat D&C or hysterectomy are adopted instead of chemotherapy, it is important that patients are very closely monitored post operatively to ensure normalization of their hCG levels (as described above). If it fails to normalize, restaging scans and examinations should be performed, and referral for the appropriate chemotherapy regimen should be initiated without delay.

Postmolar GTN is a serious condition that usually can be cured with chemotherapy or, if appropriate, surgery. Gynecologists should be vigilant for the development of postmolar GTN following evacuation of a molar pregnancy, and refer to a gynecologic oncologist when criteria are met to ensure that overtreatment is avoided and essential therapy is ensured.
 

Dr. Rossi is assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She said she had no relevant financial disclosures. Email her at obnews@mdedge.com.

References

1. Lancet Oncol. 2007 Aug;8(8):715-24.

2. J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2019 Nov 1;17(11):1374-91.

3. Gynecol Oncol. 2009 Mar;112(3):663-72.

4. World Health Organ Tech Rep Ser. 1983;692:7-81.

5. Obstet Gynecol. 2016;128(3):535-42.

Molar pregnancy is an uncommon but serious condition that affects young women of reproductive age. The diagnosis and management of molar pregnancy is familiar to most gynecologists. However, in the days and weeks following evacuation of molar pregnancy, clinicians face a critical time period in which they must be vigilant for the development of postmolar gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN). If recognized early and treated appropriately, it almost always can be cured; however, errors or delays in the management of this condition can have catastrophic consequences for patients, including decreasing the likelihood of cure. Here we will review some of the steps and actions that can be taken immediately following the diagnosis of a molar pregnancy to expeditiously identify postmolar GTN and ensure patients are appropriately prepared for further consultation and intervention.

Postmolar GTN includes the diagnoses of invasive mole and choriocarcinoma that contain highly atypical trophoblasts with the capacity for local invasion and metastasis. Typically, the diagnosis is made clinically and not distinguished with histology. While molar pregnancies are a benign condition, invasive moles and choriocarcinoma are malignant conditions in which the molar tissue infiltrates the uterine myometrium, vasculature, and frequently is associated with hematogenous spread with distant metastases. It is a highly chemosensitive disease, and cure with chemotherapy typically is achieved with the ability to preserve fertility if desired even in advanced stage disease.¹

After evacuation of a molar pregnancy, gynecologists should be on alert for the development of postmolar GTN if the following known risk factors are present: a history of a prior GTN diagnosis, complete mole on pathology (as opposed to partial mole), serum human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) levels greater than 100,000 mIU/mL, age greater than 40 years, an enlarged uterus or large ovarian theca lutein cysts, and slow to normalize (more than 2 months) hCG. Symptoms for the development of postmolar GTN include persistent vaginal bleeding after evacuation, a persistently enlarged or enlarging uterine size, and adnexal masses. Ultimately, the diagnosis is made through plateaued or rising serum hCG assessments.² (See graphic.)

Following the evacuation of a molar pregnancy, hCG levels should be drawn at the same laboratory every 1-2 weeks until normalization and then three consecutive normal values. Once this has been achieved, hCG levels should be tested once at 3 months and again at 6 months. During this 6 month period, patients should use reliable contraception, ideally, and through oral contraceptive pills that suppress the secretion of pituitary hCG if not contraindicated. Should a woman become pregnant during this 6-month surveillance, it becomes impossible to rule out occult postmolar GTN.

Typically after evacuation of a molar pregnancy, there is rapid fall in hCG levels, but this does not occur when the molar pregnancy has become invasive or is associated with choriocarcinoma. In these cases, after an initial drop in hCG levels, there is an observed rise or plateau in levels (as defined in the accompanying table), and this establishes the diagnosis of postmolar GTN. It is common for hCG to fall in fits and starts, rather than have a smooth, consistent diminution, and this can be worrying for gynecologists; however, provided there is a consistent reduction in values in accordance with the stated definitions, observation can continue.

Another source of confusion and concern is an HCG level that fails to completely normalize during observation, yet reaches a very low level. If this is observed, clinicians should consider the diagnosis of quiescent hCG, pituitary hCG, or phantom hCG.³ These can be difficult to distinguish from postmolar GTN, and consultation with a gynecologic oncologist with experience in the diagnosis and management of these rare tumors is helpful to determine if the persistent low levels in hCG require intervention.

Once a clinician has observed a plateau or rise in hCG levels, a gynecologic examination should be performed because the lower genital tract is a common site for metastatic postmolar GTN. If during this evaluation, a suspicious lesion is identified (typically a blue-black, slightly raised, hemorrhagic-appearing lesion), it should not be biopsied, but rather assumed to be a metastatic site. The vasculature of metastatic sites is extremely fragile, and biopsy or disruption can result in catastrophic hemorrhage, even from very small lesions.

In addition to physical examination, several diagnostic studies should be performed which may expedite the triage and management of the case. A pelvic ultrasound should evaluate the endometrial cavity for a new viable pregnancy, and residual molar tissue; sometimes, myometrial invasion consistent with an invasive mole can be appreciated. Chest x-ray or CT scan should be ordered to evaluate for pulmonary metastatic lesions. Additionally, CT scans of the abdomen and pelvis should be ordered, and if lung metastases are present, brain imaging with either MRI or CT scan also should be obtained. These imaging studies will provide the necessary information to stage the GTN (as metastatic or not).

Treatment for postmolar GTN is determined based on further prognostic categorization (“high risk” or “low risk”) in accordance with the WHO classification, which is derived using several prognostic clinical variables including age, antecedent pregnancy, interval from index pregnancy, pretreatment hCG, largest tumor size, sites and number of metastases, and response to previous chemotherapy.⁴ These assignments are necessary to determine whether single-agent or multiagent chemotherapy should be prescribed.

Laboratory studies are helpful to obtain at this time and include metabolic panels (which can ensure that renal and hepatic function are within normal limits in anticipation of future chemotherapy), and complete blood count ,which can establish viable bone marrow function prior to chemotherapy.

Once postmolar GTN has been diagnosed, it is most appropriate to refer the patient to a gynecologic oncologist with experience in the treatment of these relatively rare malignancies. At that point, the patient will be formally staged, and offered treatment based on these staging results.

Among women with low-risk, nonmetastatic GTN who desire future fertility it is appropriate to offer a repeat dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure rather than immediately proceeding with chemotherapy. Approximately two-thirds of women with low risk disease can avoid chemotherapy with repeat curettage.⁵ Risk factors for needing chemotherapy after repeat D&C include the presence of trophoblastic disease in the pathology specimen and urinary hCG levels greater than 1,500 mIU/mL at the time of curettage. In my experience, many women appreciate this option to potentially avoid toxic chemotherapy.

For women with low-risk, nonmetastatic postmolar GTN who do not desire future fertility, and hope to avoid chemotherapy, hysterectomy also is a reasonable first option. This can be performed via either minimally invasive, laparotomy, or vaginal route. If performing a minimally invasive procedure in the setting of GTN, there should be caution or avoidance of use of a uterine manipulator because the uterine wall typically is soft and prone to perforation, and bleeding can be significant secondary to disruption of the tumor.

If repeat D&C or hysterectomy are adopted instead of chemotherapy, it is important that patients are very closely monitored post operatively to ensure normalization of their hCG levels (as described above). If it fails to normalize, restaging scans and examinations should be performed, and referral for the appropriate chemotherapy regimen should be initiated without delay.

Postmolar GTN is a serious condition that usually can be cured with chemotherapy or, if appropriate, surgery. Gynecologists should be vigilant for the development of postmolar GTN following evacuation of a molar pregnancy, and refer to a gynecologic oncologist when criteria are met to ensure that overtreatment is avoided and essential therapy is ensured.
 

Dr. Rossi is assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She said she had no relevant financial disclosures. Email her at obnews@mdedge.com.

References

1. Lancet Oncol. 2007 Aug;8(8):715-24.

2. J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2019 Nov 1;17(11):1374-91.

3. Gynecol Oncol. 2009 Mar;112(3):663-72.

4. World Health Organ Tech Rep Ser. 1983;692:7-81.

5. Obstet Gynecol. 2016;128(3):535-42.

Molar pregnancy is an uncommon but serious condition that affects young women of reproductive age. The diagnosis and management of molar pregnancy is familiar to most gynecologists. However, in the days and weeks following evacuation of molar pregnancy, clinicians face a critical time period in which they must be vigilant for the development of postmolar gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN). If recognized early and treated appropriately, it almost always can be cured; however, errors or delays in the management of this condition can have catastrophic consequences for patients, including decreasing the likelihood of cure. Here we will review some of the steps and actions that can be taken immediately following the diagnosis of a molar pregnancy to expeditiously identify postmolar GTN and ensure patients are appropriately prepared for further consultation and intervention.

Postmolar GTN includes the diagnoses of invasive mole and choriocarcinoma that contain highly atypical trophoblasts with the capacity for local invasion and metastasis. Typically, the diagnosis is made clinically and not distinguished with histology. While molar pregnancies are a benign condition, invasive moles and choriocarcinoma are malignant conditions in which the molar tissue infiltrates the uterine myometrium, vasculature, and frequently is associated with hematogenous spread with distant metastases. It is a highly chemosensitive disease, and cure with chemotherapy typically is achieved with the ability to preserve fertility if desired even in advanced stage disease.¹

After evacuation of a molar pregnancy, gynecologists should be on alert for the development of postmolar GTN if the following known risk factors are present: a history of a prior GTN diagnosis, complete mole on pathology (as opposed to partial mole), serum human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) levels greater than 100,000 mIU/mL, age greater than 40 years, an enlarged uterus or large ovarian theca lutein cysts, and slow to normalize (more than 2 months) hCG. Symptoms for the development of postmolar GTN include persistent vaginal bleeding after evacuation, a persistently enlarged or enlarging uterine size, and adnexal masses. Ultimately, the diagnosis is made through plateaued or rising serum hCG assessments.² (See graphic.)

Following the evacuation of a molar pregnancy, hCG levels should be drawn at the same laboratory every 1-2 weeks until normalization and then three consecutive normal values. Once this has been achieved, hCG levels should be tested once at 3 months and again at 6 months. During this 6 month period, patients should use reliable contraception, ideally, and through oral contraceptive pills that suppress the secretion of pituitary hCG if not contraindicated. Should a woman become pregnant during this 6-month surveillance, it becomes impossible to rule out occult postmolar GTN.

Typically after evacuation of a molar pregnancy, there is rapid fall in hCG levels, but this does not occur when the molar pregnancy has become invasive or is associated with choriocarcinoma. In these cases, after an initial drop in hCG levels, there is an observed rise or plateau in levels (as defined in the accompanying table), and this establishes the diagnosis of postmolar GTN. It is common for hCG to fall in fits and starts, rather than have a smooth, consistent diminution, and this can be worrying for gynecologists; however, provided there is a consistent reduction in values in accordance with the stated definitions, observation can continue.

Another source of confusion and concern is an HCG level that fails to completely normalize during observation, yet reaches a very low level. If this is observed, clinicians should consider the diagnosis of quiescent hCG, pituitary hCG, or phantom hCG.³ These can be difficult to distinguish from postmolar GTN, and consultation with a gynecologic oncologist with experience in the diagnosis and management of these rare tumors is helpful to determine if the persistent low levels in hCG require intervention.

Once a clinician has observed a plateau or rise in hCG levels, a gynecologic examination should be performed because the lower genital tract is a common site for metastatic postmolar GTN. If during this evaluation, a suspicious lesion is identified (typically a blue-black, slightly raised, hemorrhagic-appearing lesion), it should not be biopsied, but rather assumed to be a metastatic site. The vasculature of metastatic sites is extremely fragile, and biopsy or disruption can result in catastrophic hemorrhage, even from very small lesions.

In addition to physical examination, several diagnostic studies should be performed which may expedite the triage and management of the case. A pelvic ultrasound should evaluate the endometrial cavity for a new viable pregnancy, and residual molar tissue; sometimes, myometrial invasion consistent with an invasive mole can be appreciated. Chest x-ray or CT scan should be ordered to evaluate for pulmonary metastatic lesions. Additionally, CT scans of the abdomen and pelvis should be ordered, and if lung metastases are present, brain imaging with either MRI or CT scan also should be obtained. These imaging studies will provide the necessary information to stage the GTN (as metastatic or not).

Treatment for postmolar GTN is determined based on further prognostic categorization (“high risk” or “low risk”) in accordance with the WHO classification, which is derived using several prognostic clinical variables including age, antecedent pregnancy, interval from index pregnancy, pretreatment hCG, largest tumor size, sites and number of metastases, and response to previous chemotherapy.⁴ These assignments are necessary to determine whether single-agent or multiagent chemotherapy should be prescribed.

Laboratory studies are helpful to obtain at this time and include metabolic panels (which can ensure that renal and hepatic function are within normal limits in anticipation of future chemotherapy), and complete blood count ,which can establish viable bone marrow function prior to chemotherapy.

Once postmolar GTN has been diagnosed, it is most appropriate to refer the patient to a gynecologic oncologist with experience in the treatment of these relatively rare malignancies. At that point, the patient will be formally staged, and offered treatment based on these staging results.

Among women with low-risk, nonmetastatic GTN who desire future fertility it is appropriate to offer a repeat dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure rather than immediately proceeding with chemotherapy. Approximately two-thirds of women with low risk disease can avoid chemotherapy with repeat curettage.⁵ Risk factors for needing chemotherapy after repeat D&C include the presence of trophoblastic disease in the pathology specimen and urinary hCG levels greater than 1,500 mIU/mL at the time of curettage. In my experience, many women appreciate this option to potentially avoid toxic chemotherapy.

For women with low-risk, nonmetastatic postmolar GTN who do not desire future fertility, and hope to avoid chemotherapy, hysterectomy also is a reasonable first option. This can be performed via either minimally invasive, laparotomy, or vaginal route. If performing a minimally invasive procedure in the setting of GTN, there should be caution or avoidance of use of a uterine manipulator because the uterine wall typically is soft and prone to perforation, and bleeding can be significant secondary to disruption of the tumor.

If repeat D&C or hysterectomy are adopted instead of chemotherapy, it is important that patients are very closely monitored post operatively to ensure normalization of their hCG levels (as described above). If it fails to normalize, restaging scans and examinations should be performed, and referral for the appropriate chemotherapy regimen should be initiated without delay.

Postmolar GTN is a serious condition that usually can be cured with chemotherapy or, if appropriate, surgery. Gynecologists should be vigilant for the development of postmolar GTN following evacuation of a molar pregnancy, and refer to a gynecologic oncologist when criteria are met to ensure that overtreatment is avoided and essential therapy is ensured.
 

Dr. Rossi is assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She said she had no relevant financial disclosures. Email her at obnews@mdedge.com.

References

1. Lancet Oncol. 2007 Aug;8(8):715-24.

2. J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2019 Nov 1;17(11):1374-91.

3. Gynecol Oncol. 2009 Mar;112(3):663-72.

4. World Health Organ Tech Rep Ser. 1983;692:7-81.

5. Obstet Gynecol. 2016;128(3):535-42.

A Washington Post article on depression after miscarriage is a reminder that, although couples can suffer deeply from such a loss, there still are ways to provide them with meaningful support (“After miscarriage, I was rocked by depression. Like many other women, I didn’t get follow-up care for this loss,” by Katie C. Reilly, Nov 30, 2019).

Carlo107/Getty Images

Psychiatrists who focus on reproductive psychiatry and collaborative care are trying to change the current therapeutic landscape and improve practitioner awareness and treatment. Ob.gyns. managing patients who have experienced reproductive loss, especially early-term loss, may not immediately refer couples to a therapist or psychiatrist, but we can change this. Practitioners who focus on reproductive health – both physical and mental – are trying to better understand such couples’ experiences, increase their access to care, develop preventative care strategies, and improve provider education.

At the outset, providers who treat patients who have experienced a perinatal loss must recognize that not all individuals will feel that a loss is tragic. Instead, patient reactions occur along a spectrum, and there is no “correct” way to process a loss. A couple’s reaction may depend on a variety of factors, including how late or early in pregnancy the loss occurs, whether the pregnancy is planned or unplanned, and what other psychosocial stressors, such as unstable housing, limited income, and few social supports, may exist. Not every patient experiencing grief, even profoundly, will shed tears; we need to be open to all potential reactions and be mindful when a person may need additional support.

According to the Washington Post article, even though 50% of miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities, women still feel ultimately responsible for the loss. As a society we are bombarded with “experts” in the media telling us the best way, the right way, the healthiest way to live. This barrage of advice distorts our views of what it really means to be a good parent and subtly conveys the idea that mothers are solely responsible for any bad pregnancy outcomes. I remember being fearful of causing unintentional harm to my unborn baby during my own pregnancy. What if I accidentally ate something that would affect her development? Is exposure to second-hand smoke as I walk down the street harming her? How bad would it be if I just had one cup of coffee? My doubts caused quite a bit of distress for me, which is a mild form of the distress I see when counseling couples after their miscarriages.

The article’s author also expressed concern about the emotional sterility of the environment in which miscarriages usually occur: a hospital ED. EDs are designed to promote a level of detachment and to quell any stress for the clinicians so that they can calmly handle unexpected health crises. EDs are not primarily designed to provide patients with emotional support, nor should they be. However, we still can make some improvements to existing ED design to better address couples’ emotional needs. For example, some EDs have placed mental health clinicians on staff, others call patients post discharge to address concerns, and some EDs even provide patients access to mental health trauma teams. Such services are not found in all EDs, and even those that exist may just scratch the surface of what is needed, but they are a step in the right direction. Providing this level of auxiliary care directly from the ED increases patients’ ability to access mental health support in the place where miscarriages are most likely to be first diagnosed and managed.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists already is trying to fill in the missing pieces when it comes to identifying mood symptoms following miscarriage. One of the key recommendations from the May 2018 Committee Opinion on Redefining the Postpartum Visit is that every woman who has experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death should receive follow-up care. Mental health is a suggested component of the postpartum care plan. Some outpatient ob.gyn. practices and inpatient units are using screening tools to identify postpartum depression. For example, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale can be utilized following a miscarriage to help providers identify symptoms of depression and anxiety.

However, advancements in screening practices are only the tip of the iceberg of helping patients following miscarriage. A major question is how do we provide treatment? The trend in psychiatry over the past decade has been toward collaborative care, models that embed psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians in ob.gyn. practices to help guide the diagnosis and treatment of mental health problems. Some psychiatrists practice a co-located model in which they see patients alongside their ob.gyn. colleagues, whereas other psychiatrists treat a larger number of patients by using chart reviews for medication management while relying on behavioral health care managers for counseling and monitoring. Using this model of mental health care, more patients have access to services that are provided in a location familiar to them.

Another step in the right direction is the October 2019 launch of The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry (NCRP), which provides free educational material for psychiatry faculty and residents to enhance education on topics related to reproductive psychiatry, including miscarriage, loss, and development of trauma disorders. NCRP aspires to develop educational materials for ob.gyn. residents.

In the past we may have missed the mark in recognizing and treating the trauma that prenatal loss can cause, but we are trying to improve our approaches. More and more couples are sharing their experiences and advocating for themselves and others, often creating change in medical practice, and doctors are starting to listen. As any clinician knows, changes to standards of care can take several years to disseminate into general practice, but this gap between knowledge and treatment is now in the forefront of our minds. I am hopeful that we will continue to make advances and provide better care to our patients who have endured the loss of a pregnancy.
 

Dr. Latorre is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has reported no relevant financial disclosures. Email her at obnews@mdedge.com.

A Washington Post article on depression after miscarriage is a reminder that, although couples can suffer deeply from such a loss, there still are ways to provide them with meaningful support (“After miscarriage, I was rocked by depression. Like many other women, I didn’t get follow-up care for this loss,” by Katie C. Reilly, Nov 30, 2019).

Carlo107/Getty Images

Psychiatrists who focus on reproductive psychiatry and collaborative care are trying to change the current therapeutic landscape and improve practitioner awareness and treatment. Ob.gyns. managing patients who have experienced reproductive loss, especially early-term loss, may not immediately refer couples to a therapist or psychiatrist, but we can change this. Practitioners who focus on reproductive health – both physical and mental – are trying to better understand such couples’ experiences, increase their access to care, develop preventative care strategies, and improve provider education.

At the outset, providers who treat patients who have experienced a perinatal loss must recognize that not all individuals will feel that a loss is tragic. Instead, patient reactions occur along a spectrum, and there is no “correct” way to process a loss. A couple’s reaction may depend on a variety of factors, including how late or early in pregnancy the loss occurs, whether the pregnancy is planned or unplanned, and what other psychosocial stressors, such as unstable housing, limited income, and few social supports, may exist. Not every patient experiencing grief, even profoundly, will shed tears; we need to be open to all potential reactions and be mindful when a person may need additional support.

According to the Washington Post article, even though 50% of miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities, women still feel ultimately responsible for the loss. As a society we are bombarded with “experts” in the media telling us the best way, the right way, the healthiest way to live. This barrage of advice distorts our views of what it really means to be a good parent and subtly conveys the idea that mothers are solely responsible for any bad pregnancy outcomes. I remember being fearful of causing unintentional harm to my unborn baby during my own pregnancy. What if I accidentally ate something that would affect her development? Is exposure to second-hand smoke as I walk down the street harming her? How bad would it be if I just had one cup of coffee? My doubts caused quite a bit of distress for me, which is a mild form of the distress I see when counseling couples after their miscarriages.

The article’s author also expressed concern about the emotional sterility of the environment in which miscarriages usually occur: a hospital ED. EDs are designed to promote a level of detachment and to quell any stress for the clinicians so that they can calmly handle unexpected health crises. EDs are not primarily designed to provide patients with emotional support, nor should they be. However, we still can make some improvements to existing ED design to better address couples’ emotional needs. For example, some EDs have placed mental health clinicians on staff, others call patients post discharge to address concerns, and some EDs even provide patients access to mental health trauma teams. Such services are not found in all EDs, and even those that exist may just scratch the surface of what is needed, but they are a step in the right direction. Providing this level of auxiliary care directly from the ED increases patients’ ability to access mental health support in the place where miscarriages are most likely to be first diagnosed and managed.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists already is trying to fill in the missing pieces when it comes to identifying mood symptoms following miscarriage. One of the key recommendations from the May 2018 Committee Opinion on Redefining the Postpartum Visit is that every woman who has experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death should receive follow-up care. Mental health is a suggested component of the postpartum care plan. Some outpatient ob.gyn. practices and inpatient units are using screening tools to identify postpartum depression. For example, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale can be utilized following a miscarriage to help providers identify symptoms of depression and anxiety.

However, advancements in screening practices are only the tip of the iceberg of helping patients following miscarriage. A major question is how do we provide treatment? The trend in psychiatry over the past decade has been toward collaborative care, models that embed psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians in ob.gyn. practices to help guide the diagnosis and treatment of mental health problems. Some psychiatrists practice a co-located model in which they see patients alongside their ob.gyn. colleagues, whereas other psychiatrists treat a larger number of patients by using chart reviews for medication management while relying on behavioral health care managers for counseling and monitoring. Using this model of mental health care, more patients have access to services that are provided in a location familiar to them.

Another step in the right direction is the October 2019 launch of The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry (NCRP), which provides free educational material for psychiatry faculty and residents to enhance education on topics related to reproductive psychiatry, including miscarriage, loss, and development of trauma disorders. NCRP aspires to develop educational materials for ob.gyn. residents.

In the past we may have missed the mark in recognizing and treating the trauma that prenatal loss can cause, but we are trying to improve our approaches. More and more couples are sharing their experiences and advocating for themselves and others, often creating change in medical practice, and doctors are starting to listen. As any clinician knows, changes to standards of care can take several years to disseminate into general practice, but this gap between knowledge and treatment is now in the forefront of our minds. I am hopeful that we will continue to make advances and provide better care to our patients who have endured the loss of a pregnancy.
 

Dr. Latorre is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has reported no relevant financial disclosures. Email her at obnews@mdedge.com.

A Washington Post article on depression after miscarriage is a reminder that, although couples can suffer deeply from such a loss, there still are ways to provide them with meaningful support (“After miscarriage, I was rocked by depression. Like many other women, I didn’t get follow-up care for this loss,” by Katie C. Reilly, Nov 30, 2019).

Carlo107/Getty Images

Psychiatrists who focus on reproductive psychiatry and collaborative care are trying to change the current therapeutic landscape and improve practitioner awareness and treatment. Ob.gyns. managing patients who have experienced reproductive loss, especially early-term loss, may not immediately refer couples to a therapist or psychiatrist, but we can change this. Practitioners who focus on reproductive health – both physical and mental – are trying to better understand such couples’ experiences, increase their access to care, develop preventative care strategies, and improve provider education.

At the outset, providers who treat patients who have experienced a perinatal loss must recognize that not all individuals will feel that a loss is tragic. Instead, patient reactions occur along a spectrum, and there is no “correct” way to process a loss. A couple’s reaction may depend on a variety of factors, including how late or early in pregnancy the loss occurs, whether the pregnancy is planned or unplanned, and what other psychosocial stressors, such as unstable housing, limited income, and few social supports, may exist. Not every patient experiencing grief, even profoundly, will shed tears; we need to be open to all potential reactions and be mindful when a person may need additional support.

According to the Washington Post article, even though 50% of miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities, women still feel ultimately responsible for the loss. As a society we are bombarded with “experts” in the media telling us the best way, the right way, the healthiest way to live. This barrage of advice distorts our views of what it really means to be a good parent and subtly conveys the idea that mothers are solely responsible for any bad pregnancy outcomes. I remember being fearful of causing unintentional harm to my unborn baby during my own pregnancy. What if I accidentally ate something that would affect her development? Is exposure to second-hand smoke as I walk down the street harming her? How bad would it be if I just had one cup of coffee? My doubts caused quite a bit of distress for me, which is a mild form of the distress I see when counseling couples after their miscarriages.

The article’s author also expressed concern about the emotional sterility of the environment in which miscarriages usually occur: a hospital ED. EDs are designed to promote a level of detachment and to quell any stress for the clinicians so that they can calmly handle unexpected health crises. EDs are not primarily designed to provide patients with emotional support, nor should they be. However, we still can make some improvements to existing ED design to better address couples’ emotional needs. For example, some EDs have placed mental health clinicians on staff, others call patients post discharge to address concerns, and some EDs even provide patients access to mental health trauma teams. Such services are not found in all EDs, and even those that exist may just scratch the surface of what is needed, but they are a step in the right direction. Providing this level of auxiliary care directly from the ED increases patients’ ability to access mental health support in the place where miscarriages are most likely to be first diagnosed and managed.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists already is trying to fill in the missing pieces when it comes to identifying mood symptoms following miscarriage. One of the key recommendations from the May 2018 Committee Opinion on Redefining the Postpartum Visit is that every woman who has experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death should receive follow-up care. Mental health is a suggested component of the postpartum care plan. Some outpatient ob.gyn. practices and inpatient units are using screening tools to identify postpartum depression. For example, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale can be utilized following a miscarriage to help providers identify symptoms of depression and anxiety.

However, advancements in screening practices are only the tip of the iceberg of helping patients following miscarriage. A major question is how do we provide treatment? The trend in psychiatry over the past decade has been toward collaborative care, models that embed psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians in ob.gyn. practices to help guide the diagnosis and treatment of mental health problems. Some psychiatrists practice a co-located model in which they see patients alongside their ob.gyn. colleagues, whereas other psychiatrists treat a larger number of patients by using chart reviews for medication management while relying on behavioral health care managers for counseling and monitoring. Using this model of mental health care, more patients have access to services that are provided in a location familiar to them.

Another step in the right direction is the October 2019 launch of The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry (NCRP), which provides free educational material for psychiatry faculty and residents to enhance education on topics related to reproductive psychiatry, including miscarriage, loss, and development of trauma disorders. NCRP aspires to develop educational materials for ob.gyn. residents.

In the past we may have missed the mark in recognizing and treating the trauma that prenatal loss can cause, but we are trying to improve our approaches. More and more couples are sharing their experiences and advocating for themselves and others, often creating change in medical practice, and doctors are starting to listen. As any clinician knows, changes to standards of care can take several years to disseminate into general practice, but this gap between knowledge and treatment is now in the forefront of our minds. I am hopeful that we will continue to make advances and provide better care to our patients who have endured the loss of a pregnancy.
 

Dr. Latorre is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has reported no relevant financial disclosures. Email her at obnews@mdedge.com.

Numerous articles, books, and newspaper editorials have been written about the “crisis” in mental health care in our country from various perspectives, and the phrase is often used that the mental health system is “broken.” It seems that lately, this topic is often brought up after the most recent mass shooting.¹

Philip T. Yanos, PhD, correctly asked recently whether we should be talking about a “broken” system, because implicit in the phrase is the assumption that the mental health system was once “whole,” and he has pointed out² chronic deficiencies, such as the absence of affordable housing, and the availability of services to those with chronic mental illness.

In addition, many authors have asserted that, with deinstitutionalization – which occurred starting with the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 – homelessness also became a big problem for people in our prisons and jails, which became the default treatment providers for many of those with serious mental illness.Once authors make this point, they often offer up ways to start addressing various parts of the system, and it usually comes down to asking for more funding for more outpatient treatment and services as well as more inpatient beds. Some authors make the point³ that people with mental illness often lack insight into their illness and the need for treatment. Thus, we have the quandary of people with severe mental illness not believing that they need help, and thus not even trying to access services, which can lead to homelessness and jail time.

But what of those individuals with serious mental health problems who aren’t facing those obstacles and complications? What about individuals who aren’t facing homelessness, who haven’t gotten embroiled in the legal system, who do have insurance coverage, who live in areas with sufficient numbers of outpatient mental health centers to choose from, and who have no problems finding an inpatient bed when needed? Let’s suppose that we have an individual who does have insight into his mental illness and need for treatment, and is motivated to seek treatment. How responsive is the system to such individuals? That will be the focus on my article.

In a recent report,⁴ the author quotes American Psychiatric Association President Bruce J. Schwartz, MD, appealing to members of the U.S. Congress to step in. According to the author, Dr. Schwartz’s position is that the crisis in American mental health begins specifically with a drastic, and growing, shortage of psychiatric beds, especially in publicly funded state and county hospital beds. From there, the crisis spreads to the nation’s city streets, and its jails and prisons, where the largest number of people with serious mental illness now reside. He also talks about a shortage of psychiatrists and child psychiatrists, and says the shortage is likely to worsen. The proposed solution to this problem, of course, is more funding from Congress to open more psychiatric beds, as well as providing more funding for mental health in general and funding to residency programs to increase the numbers of psychiatrists.

I respect the opinions of Dr. Schwartz and that of the other authors who want to talk about lack of adequate beds, outpatient clinics and services, insufficient numbers of psychiatrists, and a lack of funding by Congress. However, I would like to provide further information, from a personal perspective, which causes me to believe that the problem is even more complex than that, and that the failures of the system are compounded by a dysfunctional culture within the ranks of professional caregivers. In other words, once the pieces are in place and assembled, the mental health system still seems to be “broken” but from within. I worry about apathy and an absence of motivation to provide good or even adequate services by the very people who are or should be aware of the problems and what it takes to help our vulnerable patients lead better lives.

I have practiced psychiatry for many years in various settings. I have spent many years working as an inpatient psychiatrist in a large state hospital. I have worked in community mental health outpatient settings. I have also worked in a private practice doing both inpatient and outpatient patient care as well as significant forensic work. At the hospitals, I have witnessed and prepared internal reports about patients who are “revolving doors.” Such patients often had more than 50 psychiatric hospitalizations and no apparent solution to keep them stable enough in the community.

But mental illness is not just a career for me. In addition to being psychiatrist, I am the father of a son with severe and persistent mental illness. I have watched him struggle to find stability. He, too, has been in and out of hospitals. My wife is also in the mental health field. She and I have endlessly tried to work with our son’s local community mental health center to provide them with feedback and to get them to respond to his needs – often with great frustration. It has been our impression that clinicians have difficulty listening to us and understanding the difficulties our son is having, from my son’s case manager to the treating psychiatrist, to the director of the agency. We have tried shifting him to other programs in a neighboring county, including one known to be a “model” program, but had the same issues.

Psychiatry is more of an art than science. Our other medical colleagues can try to resolve a clinical problem, no matter their rank, by ordering the right blood test or getting certain imaging. Psychiatry has no such biomarkers, or validated tests, to rely on to resolve disputes. We have only our training and experience and, unfortunately, our biases. If we don’t agree with a colleague, we often resort to rank and argument.

It is hard to hear, but psychiatrists sometimes resort to name-calling, often behind their colleagues’ backs, and to acting superior. There seems to be a certain attitude. Psychiatrists (just as can colleagues in other specialties) can be insufferably arrogant.

My personal experience has been that the hospital and the community often don’t communicate well. This seems to be a systems problem, as is the case for many complex unsolvable problems. I have been to discharge meetings involving hospital staff and the receiving community system. The attitude of the inpatient psychiatrist is often: “If you guys only did your job better, this patient wouldn’t keep having to be admitted. It’s your job to keep him out of the hospital.”

Alternatively, the community rejects this attitude and points to the absence of resources that prevents them from seeing patients in a timely manner and from adequately monitoring them. They say they are shackled by their resource constraints and that the endless admissions are inevitable. Further, the outpatient psychiatrists complain bitterly that all the inpatient doctors do is make a bunch of useless medication changes and then don’t keep patients in long enough to make sure the patient stays well. And on and on the arguments go with no resolution.

Sadly, and confirmed by my personal experience, when well-meaning and knowledgeable family members try to communicate with the community mental health system about their son’s mental disintegration, the community agency often doesn’t welcome the feedback. They resort to “confidentiality” concerns, often ill advised. Their opinion seems to be that the patient, (i.e. the patient who is falling apart and is becoming psychotic), should be the one calling the agency, waiting on hold forever, and not getting a call back. When my son has been in this situation, he has hung up his telephone out of frustration, then headed off to the emergency room, where he knew he would be seen.

The other area of frustration is that of the ideal of recovery. Mental health programs love to tout that their mission is “recovery,” and they list it as one of their primary areas of vision and goals. Yet, when we tried to communicate with community clinicians, they usually ignored our request to assist our son with supported employment and to help him achieve independence and a social life. When we tried to convey our recovery concerns to the psychiatrist, the usual response was also to ignore it and focus on “meds, meds, meds,” which most psychiatrists seem to view as their mission and area of expertise. Many psychiatrists have embraced the “bio-bio-bio” model of evaluation and treatment⁵ with only lip service paid to the “biopsychosocial” theory they like to say they advocate. When we reached out to our son’s psychiatrists and could get through, we found that they mostly failed to display much interest in paying attention to broader areas of functioning, instead focusing on symptoms, which they could observe in person.

So, I add to the chorus complaining that our mental health system is broken. Broken not only in terms of adequate funding, but also broken from within. It would require much wisdom and self-examination to even begin to address the problem. Without a better plan, throwing money at this broken system won’t improve the lives of our seriously ill and vulnerable psychiatric patients.
 

Dr. Kausch is a clinical and forensic psychiatrist who is on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland as an assistant clinical professor. He spends most of his time seeing patients through the Akron General/Cleveland Clinic health system. He has published in the area of forensic psychiatry, addictions, pathological gambling, and suicide. He has recently taken an interest in conducting marital therapy and is now publishing in that area as well.

References

1. Doroshow D. “We need to stop focusing on the mental health of mass shooters.” Washington Post. 2019 May 20.

2. Yanos P. “Is the mental health system ‘broken’?” Psychology Today. 2018 Oct 11.

3. Orenstein N. “How to fix a broken mental health system.” The Atlantic. 2016 Jun 8.

4. Moran M. APA rings alarm in nation’s capitol about crisis in mental health care. Psychiatr News. 2020 Jan 1.

5. Paris J. “Psychotherapy in an Age of Neuroscience.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Numerous articles, books, and newspaper editorials have been written about the “crisis” in mental health care in our country from various perspectives, and the phrase is often used that the mental health system is “broken.” It seems that lately, this topic is often brought up after the most recent mass shooting.¹

Philip T. Yanos, PhD, correctly asked recently whether we should be talking about a “broken” system, because implicit in the phrase is the assumption that the mental health system was once “whole,” and he has pointed out² chronic deficiencies, such as the absence of affordable housing, and the availability of services to those with chronic mental illness.

In addition, many authors have asserted that, with deinstitutionalization – which occurred starting with the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 – homelessness also became a big problem for people in our prisons and jails, which became the default treatment providers for many of those with serious mental illness.Once authors make this point, they often offer up ways to start addressing various parts of the system, and it usually comes down to asking for more funding for more outpatient treatment and services as well as more inpatient beds. Some authors make the point³ that people with mental illness often lack insight into their illness and the need for treatment. Thus, we have the quandary of people with severe mental illness not believing that they need help, and thus not even trying to access services, which can lead to homelessness and jail time.

But what of those individuals with serious mental health problems who aren’t facing those obstacles and complications? What about individuals who aren’t facing homelessness, who haven’t gotten embroiled in the legal system, who do have insurance coverage, who live in areas with sufficient numbers of outpatient mental health centers to choose from, and who have no problems finding an inpatient bed when needed? Let’s suppose that we have an individual who does have insight into his mental illness and need for treatment, and is motivated to seek treatment. How responsive is the system to such individuals? That will be the focus on my article.

In a recent report,⁴ the author quotes American Psychiatric Association President Bruce J. Schwartz, MD, appealing to members of the U.S. Congress to step in. According to the author, Dr. Schwartz’s position is that the crisis in American mental health begins specifically with a drastic, and growing, shortage of psychiatric beds, especially in publicly funded state and county hospital beds. From there, the crisis spreads to the nation’s city streets, and its jails and prisons, where the largest number of people with serious mental illness now reside. He also talks about a shortage of psychiatrists and child psychiatrists, and says the shortage is likely to worsen. The proposed solution to this problem, of course, is more funding from Congress to open more psychiatric beds, as well as providing more funding for mental health in general and funding to residency programs to increase the numbers of psychiatrists.

I respect the opinions of Dr. Schwartz and that of the other authors who want to talk about lack of adequate beds, outpatient clinics and services, insufficient numbers of psychiatrists, and a lack of funding by Congress. However, I would like to provide further information, from a personal perspective, which causes me to believe that the problem is even more complex than that, and that the failures of the system are compounded by a dysfunctional culture within the ranks of professional caregivers. In other words, once the pieces are in place and assembled, the mental health system still seems to be “broken” but from within. I worry about apathy and an absence of motivation to provide good or even adequate services by the very people who are or should be aware of the problems and what it takes to help our vulnerable patients lead better lives.

I have practiced psychiatry for many years in various settings. I have spent many years working as an inpatient psychiatrist in a large state hospital. I have worked in community mental health outpatient settings. I have also worked in a private practice doing both inpatient and outpatient patient care as well as significant forensic work. At the hospitals, I have witnessed and prepared internal reports about patients who are “revolving doors.” Such patients often had more than 50 psychiatric hospitalizations and no apparent solution to keep them stable enough in the community.

But mental illness is not just a career for me. In addition to being psychiatrist, I am the father of a son with severe and persistent mental illness. I have watched him struggle to find stability. He, too, has been in and out of hospitals. My wife is also in the mental health field. She and I have endlessly tried to work with our son’s local community mental health center to provide them with feedback and to get them to respond to his needs – often with great frustration. It has been our impression that clinicians have difficulty listening to us and understanding the difficulties our son is having, from my son’s case manager to the treating psychiatrist, to the director of the agency. We have tried shifting him to other programs in a neighboring county, including one known to be a “model” program, but had the same issues.

Psychiatry is more of an art than science. Our other medical colleagues can try to resolve a clinical problem, no matter their rank, by ordering the right blood test or getting certain imaging. Psychiatry has no such biomarkers, or validated tests, to rely on to resolve disputes. We have only our training and experience and, unfortunately, our biases. If we don’t agree with a colleague, we often resort to rank and argument.

It is hard to hear, but psychiatrists sometimes resort to name-calling, often behind their colleagues’ backs, and to acting superior. There seems to be a certain attitude. Psychiatrists (just as can colleagues in other specialties) can be insufferably arrogant.

My personal experience has been that the hospital and the community often don’t communicate well. This seems to be a systems problem, as is the case for many complex unsolvable problems. I have been to discharge meetings involving hospital staff and the receiving community system. The attitude of the inpatient psychiatrist is often: “If you guys only did your job better, this patient wouldn’t keep having to be admitted. It’s your job to keep him out of the hospital.”

Alternatively, the community rejects this attitude and points to the absence of resources that prevents them from seeing patients in a timely manner and from adequately monitoring them. They say they are shackled by their resource constraints and that the endless admissions are inevitable. Further, the outpatient psychiatrists complain bitterly that all the inpatient doctors do is make a bunch of useless medication changes and then don’t keep patients in long enough to make sure the patient stays well. And on and on the arguments go with no resolution.

Sadly, and confirmed by my personal experience, when well-meaning and knowledgeable family members try to communicate with the community mental health system about their son’s mental disintegration, the community agency often doesn’t welcome the feedback. They resort to “confidentiality” concerns, often ill advised. Their opinion seems to be that the patient, (i.e. the patient who is falling apart and is becoming psychotic), should be the one calling the agency, waiting on hold forever, and not getting a call back. When my son has been in this situation, he has hung up his telephone out of frustration, then headed off to the emergency room, where he knew he would be seen.

The other area of frustration is that of the ideal of recovery. Mental health programs love to tout that their mission is “recovery,” and they list it as one of their primary areas of vision and goals. Yet, when we tried to communicate with community clinicians, they usually ignored our request to assist our son with supported employment and to help him achieve independence and a social life. When we tried to convey our recovery concerns to the psychiatrist, the usual response was also to ignore it and focus on “meds, meds, meds,” which most psychiatrists seem to view as their mission and area of expertise. Many psychiatrists have embraced the “bio-bio-bio” model of evaluation and treatment⁵ with only lip service paid to the “biopsychosocial” theory they like to say they advocate. When we reached out to our son’s psychiatrists and could get through, we found that they mostly failed to display much interest in paying attention to broader areas of functioning, instead focusing on symptoms, which they could observe in person.

So, I add to the chorus complaining that our mental health system is broken. Broken not only in terms of adequate funding, but also broken from within. It would require much wisdom and self-examination to even begin to address the problem. Without a better plan, throwing money at this broken system won’t improve the lives of our seriously ill and vulnerable psychiatric patients.
 

Dr. Kausch is a clinical and forensic psychiatrist who is on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland as an assistant clinical professor. He spends most of his time seeing patients through the Akron General/Cleveland Clinic health system. He has published in the area of forensic psychiatry, addictions, pathological gambling, and suicide. He has recently taken an interest in conducting marital therapy and is now publishing in that area as well.

References

1. Doroshow D. “We need to stop focusing on the mental health of mass shooters.” Washington Post. 2019 May 20.

2. Yanos P. “Is the mental health system ‘broken’?” Psychology Today. 2018 Oct 11.

3. Orenstein N. “How to fix a broken mental health system.” The Atlantic. 2016 Jun 8.

4. Moran M. APA rings alarm in nation’s capitol about crisis in mental health care. Psychiatr News. 2020 Jan 1.

5. Paris J. “Psychotherapy in an Age of Neuroscience.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Numerous articles, books, and newspaper editorials have been written about the “crisis” in mental health care in our country from various perspectives, and the phrase is often used that the mental health system is “broken.” It seems that lately, this topic is often brought up after the most recent mass shooting.¹

Philip T. Yanos, PhD, correctly asked recently whether we should be talking about a “broken” system, because implicit in the phrase is the assumption that the mental health system was once “whole,” and he has pointed out² chronic deficiencies, such as the absence of affordable housing, and the availability of services to those with chronic mental illness.

In addition, many authors have asserted that, with deinstitutionalization – which occurred starting with the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 – homelessness also became a big problem for people in our prisons and jails, which became the default treatment providers for many of those with serious mental illness.Once authors make this point, they often offer up ways to start addressing various parts of the system, and it usually comes down to asking for more funding for more outpatient treatment and services as well as more inpatient beds. Some authors make the point³ that people with mental illness often lack insight into their illness and the need for treatment. Thus, we have the quandary of people with severe mental illness not believing that they need help, and thus not even trying to access services, which can lead to homelessness and jail time.

But what of those individuals with serious mental health problems who aren’t facing those obstacles and complications? What about individuals who aren’t facing homelessness, who haven’t gotten embroiled in the legal system, who do have insurance coverage, who live in areas with sufficient numbers of outpatient mental health centers to choose from, and who have no problems finding an inpatient bed when needed? Let’s suppose that we have an individual who does have insight into his mental illness and need for treatment, and is motivated to seek treatment. How responsive is the system to such individuals? That will be the focus on my article.

In a recent report,⁴ the author quotes American Psychiatric Association President Bruce J. Schwartz, MD, appealing to members of the U.S. Congress to step in. According to the author, Dr. Schwartz’s position is that the crisis in American mental health begins specifically with a drastic, and growing, shortage of psychiatric beds, especially in publicly funded state and county hospital beds. From there, the crisis spreads to the nation’s city streets, and its jails and prisons, where the largest number of people with serious mental illness now reside. He also talks about a shortage of psychiatrists and child psychiatrists, and says the shortage is likely to worsen. The proposed solution to this problem, of course, is more funding from Congress to open more psychiatric beds, as well as providing more funding for mental health in general and funding to residency programs to increase the numbers of psychiatrists.

I respect the opinions of Dr. Schwartz and that of the other authors who want to talk about lack of adequate beds, outpatient clinics and services, insufficient numbers of psychiatrists, and a lack of funding by Congress. However, I would like to provide further information, from a personal perspective, which causes me to believe that the problem is even more complex than that, and that the failures of the system are compounded by a dysfunctional culture within the ranks of professional caregivers. In other words, once the pieces are in place and assembled, the mental health system still seems to be “broken” but from within. I worry about apathy and an absence of motivation to provide good or even adequate services by the very people who are or should be aware of the problems and what it takes to help our vulnerable patients lead better lives.

I have practiced psychiatry for many years in various settings. I have spent many years working as an inpatient psychiatrist in a large state hospital. I have worked in community mental health outpatient settings. I have also worked in a private practice doing both inpatient and outpatient patient care as well as significant forensic work. At the hospitals, I have witnessed and prepared internal reports about patients who are “revolving doors.” Such patients often had more than 50 psychiatric hospitalizations and no apparent solution to keep them stable enough in the community.

But mental illness is not just a career for me. In addition to being psychiatrist, I am the father of a son with severe and persistent mental illness. I have watched him struggle to find stability. He, too, has been in and out of hospitals. My wife is also in the mental health field. She and I have endlessly tried to work with our son’s local community mental health center to provide them with feedback and to get them to respond to his needs – often with great frustration. It has been our impression that clinicians have difficulty listening to us and understanding the difficulties our son is having, from my son’s case manager to the treating psychiatrist, to the director of the agency. We have tried shifting him to other programs in a neighboring county, including one known to be a “model” program, but had the same issues.

Psychiatry is more of an art than science. Our other medical colleagues can try to resolve a clinical problem, no matter their rank, by ordering the right blood test or getting certain imaging. Psychiatry has no such biomarkers, or validated tests, to rely on to resolve disputes. We have only our training and experience and, unfortunately, our biases. If we don’t agree with a colleague, we often resort to rank and argument.

It is hard to hear, but psychiatrists sometimes resort to name-calling, often behind their colleagues’ backs, and to acting superior. There seems to be a certain attitude. Psychiatrists (just as can colleagues in other specialties) can be insufferably arrogant.

My personal experience has been that the hospital and the community often don’t communicate well. This seems to be a systems problem, as is the case for many complex unsolvable problems. I have been to discharge meetings involving hospital staff and the receiving community system. The attitude of the inpatient psychiatrist is often: “If you guys only did your job better, this patient wouldn’t keep having to be admitted. It’s your job to keep him out of the hospital.”

Alternatively, the community rejects this attitude and points to the absence of resources that prevents them from seeing patients in a timely manner and from adequately monitoring them. They say they are shackled by their resource constraints and that the endless admissions are inevitable. Further, the outpatient psychiatrists complain bitterly that all the inpatient doctors do is make a bunch of useless medication changes and then don’t keep patients in long enough to make sure the patient stays well. And on and on the arguments go with no resolution.

Sadly, and confirmed by my personal experience, when well-meaning and knowledgeable family members try to communicate with the community mental health system about their son’s mental disintegration, the community agency often doesn’t welcome the feedback. They resort to “confidentiality” concerns, often ill advised. Their opinion seems to be that the patient, (i.e. the patient who is falling apart and is becoming psychotic), should be the one calling the agency, waiting on hold forever, and not getting a call back. When my son has been in this situation, he has hung up his telephone out of frustration, then headed off to the emergency room, where he knew he would be seen.

The other area of frustration is that of the ideal of recovery. Mental health programs love to tout that their mission is “recovery,” and they list it as one of their primary areas of vision and goals. Yet, when we tried to communicate with community clinicians, they usually ignored our request to assist our son with supported employment and to help him achieve independence and a social life. When we tried to convey our recovery concerns to the psychiatrist, the usual response was also to ignore it and focus on “meds, meds, meds,” which most psychiatrists seem to view as their mission and area of expertise. Many psychiatrists have embraced the “bio-bio-bio” model of evaluation and treatment⁵ with only lip service paid to the “biopsychosocial” theory they like to say they advocate. When we reached out to our son’s psychiatrists and could get through, we found that they mostly failed to display much interest in paying attention to broader areas of functioning, instead focusing on symptoms, which they could observe in person.

So, I add to the chorus complaining that our mental health system is broken. Broken not only in terms of adequate funding, but also broken from within. It would require much wisdom and self-examination to even begin to address the problem. Without a better plan, throwing money at this broken system won’t improve the lives of our seriously ill and vulnerable psychiatric patients.
 

Dr. Kausch is a clinical and forensic psychiatrist who is on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland as an assistant clinical professor. He spends most of his time seeing patients through the Akron General/Cleveland Clinic health system. He has published in the area of forensic psychiatry, addictions, pathological gambling, and suicide. He has recently taken an interest in conducting marital therapy and is now publishing in that area as well.

References

1. Doroshow D. “We need to stop focusing on the mental health of mass shooters.” Washington Post. 2019 May 20.

2. Yanos P. “Is the mental health system ‘broken’?” Psychology Today. 2018 Oct 11.

3. Orenstein N. “How to fix a broken mental health system.” The Atlantic. 2016 Jun 8.

4. Moran M. APA rings alarm in nation’s capitol about crisis in mental health care. Psychiatr News. 2020 Jan 1.

5. Paris J. “Psychotherapy in an Age of Neuroscience.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.