<p>I just read the original post again. Any health care provider working in 2007 with this particular patient population (in terms of age) and prescribing Wellbutrin, Adderall, Accutane and Prozac did not know what she was doing. I remember reading about the risks of the individual medications - can’t even imagine the risks of this combination.</p>
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<p>This is the present. My mom can’t remember the last time she saw her cardiologist. Supposedly , he has to examine her ever so often but he is never available so she sees the NP. The NP examines, adjusts her meds - she says the doctor reviews it all but who knows. My mom loves the NP - she is much more responsive than the doctor and knows my mom much better. My mom lives in a rural area where there are lots of senior citizens and only a few cardiologists. They are all overwhelmed by patients and rely very heavily on the NPs. The real problem comes when there is an emergency and then the doctor with whom you have no relationship shows up at the hospital to treat you.</p>
<p>While the law recognizes that an 18-year-old is an adult and should be able to deal with all issues without a parent being involved, I know that that there are issues that I as a pre-retiree need help to determine what to do, let alone my two teens in college. What this thread has done for me is to add an item that DW & I need to discuss with D1 & S1 this Christmas break. Their pharmaceutical knowledge is close to nothing and I can see them blindly accepting any advice they get from their student health center.</p>
<p>My mother worked as a delivery nurse for decades and was with one of my sisters for her delivery. There were problems with the pregnancy and the child cuold have died without my mother being there - she was well acquainted with the mistakes that can be made by hospital personnel. Mistakes are made in any kind of medical setting and young adults or old adults should be willing to do research, ask questions, get a second opinion and ask others when they have difficult medical decisions to make. You can see my thread about root canals in the Parent Cafe forum - the thread was very helpful to me as it changed my mind on the course of treatment that I was contemplating and I’m very happy with the result. I suspect that I would have regretted my original planned course of action.</p>
<p>Dad<em>of</em>3, you’re so right–this is a conversation we all need to have with our college aged kids. In fact, I just spoke with my D about this article, and she did tell me that she knows a lot of kids on meds for a variety of seemingly stress-related depression issues. She just learned that one of her good friends is taking next semester off to deal with her depression issues. She assured me that she would not ever take anything prescribed to her by health services without doing the research and consulting me. She says the mental health people are pretty worthless and hand out pills like candy on Halloween–adding she would never go there if she needed any real help. I’m thinking that health services shouldn’t be prescribing these types of meds at all. Yep, band-aids and tylenol, please.</p>