June 2001 • Volume 7 • Number 6
AAFP reforges mental health policy
Call it serendipity. The Academy is right in step with the heightened emphasis U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., has placed on improving mental health services (see 'Suicide prevention is everybody's business': Surgeon general announces national strategy).
The Academy has long championed the cause of patients' rights to mental health services. AAFP's 2000 Annual Clinical Focus was on mental health, and, this March, the Board of Directors approved major revisions to Academy policy on mental health that reflect much of what the nation's "first doctor" has proposed.
The policy says family physicians, as the specialists who "have traditionally focused on treating the whole patient" and who recognize "the mind, body and spirit connection," are "uniquely positioned to recognize and treat problems in the continuum from mental health to mental illness."
Further, the policy notes that FPs "are able to treat those individuals who would not access traditional mental health services because of the perceived stigma of mental illness."
Lastly, the new mental health policy statement calls on family physicians to "support appropriate public mental health policy and, when possible, support and coordinate with other organizations to promote better mental health services for those with mental illness. These efforts should include prevention of mortality through careful use of medications and suicide prevention."
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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