Helpless Helper

The evolution of psychiatric pharmaceutical advertising over the last fifty years reflects a commercial shift in who is being targeted in the psychiatric marketplace. The horror-like advertisements of the 1970s were directed at physicians and depicted evocative imagery of agitation, psychosis, and deviance. Contemporary direct-to-consumer advertising reaches people experiencing a broader range of distress and invites them to recognize themselves as potential patients.

Here’s what I know about how to see a consult: it’s the guide I wish I could go back and give junior me to help prevent a few unpleasant encounters and stop a few things falling through the cracks. The one saving grace of consults is that the workflow, at least, can be standardized, and if you figure that part out, it will give you a sense of control to fall back on no matter what the hospital throws at you.

Medicine's dominant model of professionalism developed within institutions shaped by whiteness. It often treats particular ways of displaying authority, confidence, emotional control, and leadership as universal evidence of competence. Cultural identity is not an accessory a student can remove before rounds. It shapes how we show respect, respond to hierarchy, communicate uncertainty, lead, seek help, and understand our responsibilities to other people.