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Guidelines vs. Individualization2025-07-14
“Individualism regards a person – every person - as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his/her own life, a right derived from his/her nature as a rational being.”
—Ayn Rand
Guidelines about diagnosis and treatment, in medicine in general, and in psychiatry in particular, are expedient, populational, pharma driven, and adjusted infrequently, by committees.
Individualized diagnosis and treatment take time, are personal, patient and family driven, and adjusted continuously, by patients and their clinicians.
In the end medicine deals with individuals, so it follows that all medicine should be individualized. Guidelines should be just a starting point, not a mandate. A floor, not a ceiling. They are based on averages and common denominators, so do not fit individual reality, or work, particularly well in most individuals. Patients, along with their clinicians, are the decision makers. It is their life, after all.