Drugs, Hippies, and Doctors

Abstract

The doctor-patient relationship is rapidly becoming pharmaceuticalized. Every physician has his own particular pharmacologic armamentarium. Armamentarium indeed! A formidable array of chemical weapons and chemical solace. The more drugs that have become available, the more physicians have felt relieved of the burden of taking a careful history, of listening to patients. Time is running short in the consultation room. Physicians are increasingly dependent upon the prescription of drugs. It is a rare experience for a patient to leave a doctor's office without a prescription in his hand. Now, there are more specific drugs, more potent drugs in widespread use than there are patients, diseases, disorders, or symptoms. Every physician knows that his own attitudes and beliefs about drugs alter their effectiveness. Prescribing drugs has always been good medicine for doctors, often assuring them a good night's sleep. Tranquilized patients are "more amenable" to psychotherapy even though some appear as zombies,