Don R. Lipsitt, MD

What is integrated care anyway?

Here, barriers to successful referral to a psychiatrist, principles of management of medically unexplained symptoms, and tips on when to refer a patient to a psychiatrist.

The United States has often been characterized as a nation of hypochondriacs. This is patently not true but TV bombardment by pharmaceutical advertisements stirs anxiety and illness fears in the many worried well in our midst.

Psychiatrists helping nonpsychiatrists refer their patients has a long but not always illustrious history.

When Sigmund Freud gave his epochal lectures at Worcester's Clark University in the early 20th century, a young Harvard student named Alan Gregg was in the audience. Upon completion of his medical education and training as an internist, he would become a great visionary of psychiatry's role in the practice of medicine.