Doctor to speak about threat of over medicating
With 30 years of experience at the local and national level, including work in seven countries and more than 40 states, Macaran Baird wants to educate the American people and students about the harmful effects ‘over medicalization’ of normal life traumas can have on people around the world.
The Herbert Lourie Memorial Lecture on Health Policy will take place at 2 p.m. Friday in the Sheraton University Hotel and Conference Center. Baird is a former Syracuse University Chair of Family Medicine.
Baird, a professor and head of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Minnesota, will focus his talk on the integration of behavioral medicine and improving overall health.
Friends and family members need to provide social support rather than prescription help, he added. He said he believes where a person is from and the social context a person is surrounded by is key to understanding the issue at hand.
‘There are limitations of the current approach to mental health,’ he said.
Baird has also seen people, especially students, who become isolated from close friends and family turn to medication to help them cope. This practice is not very helpful and can lead to bigger problems in the future, including addiction and further depression, he said.
The American people need to learn to develop new coping skills that can lead the grieving person to a better state of mind, he said.
Baird said this practice of over medicalization could lead to a ‘cultural disaster’ among the people of the United States.
Baird has worked as a professor and as a practicing doctor. His teaching career has focused mostly on the research and gathering of information on integrated mental health.
Working at SU, Baird developed numerous relationships, and those connections along with an invitation are what brought him back to speak at the lecture, he said. Baird has not spoken at many universities, but is excited to speak at SU.
Kelly Bogart, an administrative specialist at the Center for Policy Research in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, which is co-sponsoring the event, said a large turnout for the lecture is expected.
The Herbert Lourie Memorial Lecture is hosted in memory of Herbert Lourie, a clinical professor of Neurosurgery at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Lourie made a name for himself in the field of neurosurgery, as well as in the national and international medical communities, until his death in 1987.
Published on October 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Contact Nick: nrcardon@syr.edu
