Psychiatric Dimensions of Medical Practice ─ What Primary-Care Physicians Should Know About Delirium, Demoralization, Suicidal Thinking, and Competence to Refuse Medical Advice

In this book, Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Phillip R. Slavney, M.D., offers a concise guide that will help primary-care physicians evaluate and treat patients who are delirious, demoralized, thinking of suicide, or refusing to follow medical advice.

Although these patients exhibit emotional distress, cognitive disturbance, or maladaptive behavior, the cause of the problem is often their medical illness and treatment. For that reason, many such patients can receive excellent care from their own physicians—physicians who, given the resistance of managed care companies to specialist referrals, must now bear that responsibility in any event. After an introductory chapter on clinical assessment, Slavney discusses each of these common problems as it occurs in the clinical setting, with illustrative cases and specific advice about evaluation and treatment.

"Dr. Slavney has written lucidly and carefully about these very important issues, clarifying his exposition through a series of case examples. This book should be enormously useful not only to students and house staff but also to practicing physicians and faculty, especially those making the rounds on clinical services. One wishes, in fact, that it were possible to have Dr. Slavney along on rounds; this volume is a useful move in that direction."—Jeremiah A. Barondess, M.D., from the foreword