November 13, 2010
Blurb
Letter to the Editor:
As a Chinese psychiatrist trained in New York, I am grateful that you gave this health concern the attention it warrants. With China averaging just one psychiatrist for every 83,000 people, the critical shortage is astounding.
In addition to enacting legislation to coordinate and finance psychiatric care, a more urgent task would be to start a campaign to raise mental health awareness. Effective psychoeducation for China’s public to help it understand that psychiatric illnesses warrant treatment just like pneumonia is equally important.
Maybe with heightened awareness and acceptance, fewer families will lock their mentally ill loved ones in a room and more aspiring physicians will go into the field of psychiatry.
Annie Sze Yan Li
Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/opinion/l14china.html?_r=3
As a Chinese psychiatrist trained in New York, I am grateful that you gave this health concern the attention it warrants. With China averaging just one psychiatrist for every 83,000 people, the critical shortage is astounding.
In addition to enacting legislation to coordinate and finance psychiatric care, a more urgent task would be to start a campaign to raise mental health awareness. Effective psychoeducation for China’s public to help it understand that psychiatric illnesses warrant treatment just like pneumonia is equally important.
Maybe with heightened awareness and acceptance, fewer families will lock their mentally ill loved ones in a room and more aspiring physicians will go into the field of psychiatry.
Annie Sze Yan Li
Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/opinion/l14china.html?_r=3