I found GeneSight helps to build trust with my patients

November 3, 2023

Johnny Williamson, Psychiatrist

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You know, in mental health, we don’t have a lot of observable, objective information to use in decision making. We’ve come a long way with the choices in medications and therapies and the like. But for the patient experience, it can seem very mystical. And so I think GeneSight is an opportunity to encourage people to seek mental health to not be intimidated by it.

My name is Johnny Williamson, and I am a psychiatrist. I’m boarded in both general psychiatry as well as child and adolescent psychiatry. My general approach is that we’re trying to improve the life of an individual. And I seek a high level of engagement and conversation and sharing of information so that the patient understands the choices that we’re making.

They’re committed to them, and then we’re able to interpret their response, to the treatment more effectively. GeneSight is often a part of that, as well. It’s a great tool and a great aid in conveying and obtaining information, as well as giving the patient a perspective around some objective data they can use to make health choices.

In the underrepresented minorities, people of color, there are aspects of mental health that still remain taboo. Now, I’m encouraged by the fact that I think that is lessening. I don’t think they’re different challenges. I think how they show up in life Right?

What they interpret them to mean and what the things that can be triggers or stressors. You know, though, those are unique to the individual in in race and ethnicity are part of that.

But we all get depression and anxiety and PTSD and the like.

I found that GeneSight definitely helps to build trust with my patients. It’s objective information. You know, we’re in the information age and and people want and understand data. And they come to the table with a lot of knowledge. And so having that level of information and then the ability to, engage in a conversation that helps interpret that, the meeting and value, really helps to, bring their involvement and engagement in the choice of a treatment option.

My message to primary care, clinicians who are treating mental health patients, is GeneSight is data. It’s objective information. Right? We use X rays. We use MRIs.

We use blood levels.

And so it really is a way to inform yourself and the patient. And so it’s my experience that it actually makes, the interactions less complicated and the decisions less complicated. So I’ve found that it makes clinical decision making around medications, I think, more objective, more effective, and simpler.

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