I will say that I see medication being pushed as a first-line choice by doctors. This is consistent with the research, which shows that it's what dosctors say to do, regardless of the evidence that this isn't what should be tried first. I don't think PARENTS want to do it as a first-line defense, but doctors are often very, very insistent that it's necessary.
Oh, yes. To me, it isn't an MD versus psychologist issue, because both can be guilty of the same thing, which is, namely, failure to perform due diligence. My outrage at this sort of behavior stems from the fact that we both basically do the same thing for a living: troubleshoot complex systems. This is, incidentally, why I enjoy excellent health care personally... doctors and I share the same perspective and approach to the problem at hand.
If I did my job the way so many doctors do, the consequences would be the loss of a few billion dollars. No biggie. For them the stakes are much higher, and to see them failing so hard, so regularly, makes my blood boil. The problem is this: there are many doctors who are prescribing these meds based on a full evaluation and data-driven, evidence-based needs. And there are far more doctors who say, "I dunno... let's give this a try."
And... there are a great many parents who consent to medications as a last resort, and/or based on good information. There are a great many more parents who consent because an authority said so, and they don't know any better (critical thinking being a vanishing skill). There's also a significant subset of parents who view their child as a "thing", and anything unusual is a problem that must be diagnosed and treated... as opposed to, say, that the "problem" is that the kid is, in fact, a kid.
So yeah... lots of reasons to sympathize with the parents who are dealing with these things, and also reasons to be suspicious, too. This is why I tend to avoid the 2e section of this forum, because I'll likely read things that set off alarm bells on some of these behaviors, but honestly I'm in no position to judge based on a few paragraphs in a forum, and I don't want to offend.
