Catch it Early: What Doctors and Practitioners Miss About Mental Illness (Ep. 112)
Guests: Robert C. Smith, MD and Vinod Srihari, MD, Every day, millions of Americans face untreated mental health challenges—and too often, their first point of contact is a medical doctor unequipped to help. Most physicians - and many others who teach and advise youth - aren’t trained to recognize or treat mental health conditions, yet they’re the ones patients turn to first.
This gap in training has devastating consequences, contributing to the mental health crisis we see today.
Dr. Robert Smith, a seasoned physician and thought leader, is sounding the alarm: medical doctors need fundamental training in mental health care. His new book, Has Medicine Lost Its Mind? Why Our Mental Health System is Failing Us and What Should Be Done to Cure (Prometheus Books, March 4, 2025) addresses the poor state of mental health care in the US, why it occurred, what needs to be done, and how to accomplish this politically.
Our Second Guest, Vinod Srihari, MD, spearheads a new program in CT which has just been expanded to reach the whole state after a trial run in ten towns around New Haven. STEP is a clinic staffed by mental health providers in different fields – psychology, psychiatry, nursing, and social work. This "interdisciplinary" team seeks to provide comprehensive care for individuals who are early in the course of a psychotic illness in order to prevent symptoms from becoming disabling.
