Psychiatric illness in medical patients: Why it goes undiagnosed

Abstract

In the face of technologic advances in medicine and in psychiatric treatment in particular, failure to regard patients as more than the mechanical sum of their parts has led to a persistent problem of underdiagnosis and undertreatment of psychiatric illness in medical patients. The author proposes seven factors that contribute to this problem and makes a plea for humanistic interpretation of medical advances and increased collaboration between psychiatry and the rest of medicine.