A:  As part of cost-reduction measures some medical systems have afforded their patients an average of just 5 to 10 minutes of psychiatric evaluation prior to being initiated on long-term psychoactive medicines, even the powerful ones such as anti-psychotic drugs, after which family practitioners are permitted to prescribe & monitor these patients.  Imagine the uproar if surgeries were being performed by physicans assistants!  I think that because we disrespect the mind & its problems so much, we are willing for any Tom, Dick or Harriet to play psychiatrist, often allowing them to prescribe long-term, potent, mind-altering, personality-altering psychoactive drugs after little more than cursory evaluation.