March 26, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
Psychiatrists are medical doctors, and thus are able to prescribe
drugs. They have to study all the regular medical fields, like any
other MD who might go on to a different specialty. Psychologists are
not MD's and can't prescribe drugs. If they think their patients
need antidepressants, for example, they must collaborate with an MD
who can prescribe them. Psychologists would not have to study
surgery, emergency medicine, etc. It wouldn't hurt them to know
basic biology - the mind is part of the body, after all - but their
training is different from MD's.