When you take on a problem that has defied solution for 2500 years, it seems wise to plan on many years of work. Hippocrates described patients who closely resemble those we know to have psychophysiologic disorders (PPD, the new technical term for Stress Illness) but did not provide treatment based on accurate diagnosis. As far as most PPD patients are concerned, we haven’t made much progress since then. Even Sigmund Freud, who was on the right track for awhile, was regularly committing malpractice with these patients by his early 40s.
Conferences in Ann Arbor (2009) and Los Angeles (2010) have shown the ability of many individual practitioners to accurately diagnose and treat PPD. The issue now is to bring that knowledge to all three groups who can benefit: medical clinicians, mental health practitioners and people with PPD.
A small group of committed clinicians from several disciplines who are experienced in managing PPD has been meeting by teleconference at least monthly. We are in the process of creating a 501(c)3 non-profit organization to be called the PPD Association (PPDA). Our goal is to become the leading evidence-based resource for educating health care professionals and the public about PPDs. We expect to use a variety of means to achieve this.
In the internet era, communicating with large numbers of people starts with a web site. Planning for PPDAssociation.org is already underway. The guiding concept will be to present ideas based on scientific evidence and extensive clinical experience. More about how we might achieve our goals in the next post.
Tags: medical education, PPDA
