Lindsay Clancy's Medication Did THIS To Her Mind

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
Lindsay Clancy, that's the case we are talking about today, because she did everything the system tells a struggling mother to do when they're feeling that something is off, very off. She didn't just sit there and go, this is me, deal with it. She went to ERs, she called crisis lines. She checked herself into hospitals, who checked her out, took every pill they handed her, and the system kept handing her more, and then handed her back. And now she's on trial for taking the lives of her three children after going through that horrific ordeal.
We welcome your thoughts in the comment section. In the comment section, Shavaun Scott, psychotherapist and author is with us along with Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent.
13 medications in four months, that's the big thing that stands out to me on this whole damn case and just kind of ends it all. Benzo's antidepressants, antipsychotic, is cited if her husband told the doctors she was turning into a zombie. At 13 drugs, whether you just had a baby or not, and you're getting on all these different medications this frequently, and one doctor's not talking to the next and communicating what one is on, what may interact this way with that one. Is anyone still actually treating the patient or are they just kind of handing out TikToks at the behest of Big Pharma? I mean, what exactly is going on here when you have a situation exactly like Lindsay Clancy's?

**Shavaun Scott** (1:42)
Yeah, this is a systemic failure, and I hesitate to lay blame, although I might.
I would love, in this case, to look over all the treatment notes and all the rationales, because when they change a medication, they're supposed to have a rationale for why.
Did they in this case? And if they didn't, then that's a flag of a bad doctor. But I wonder how much time were they spending? Were these 15-minute appointments? I mean, one of the problems here with the system is insurance doesn't cover hour-long visits for psychiatry. It's supposed to be a quick med check, you know? So they start a med. Were they following up? You know, when you start a med with somebody who's this ill, you want to follow up in a few days, at most a week. You don't want to say, I'll see you next month. And there's no excuse for lacking the coordination of care. Providers need to talk to anyone else who's treating that person. Because, yeah, we really, at this point, it sounds horrible, it's confusing. Obviously, this was not effective treatment. Yeah. And it really needs to be, you know, the deconstruction of this whole thing. And who was not paying close attention.

**Tony Brueski** (3:06)
And it sounds pretty par for the course in how we handle prescribing most of these medications in our country. I mean, psychiatrists should be the ones that are prescribing it, but you have so many general cares that just do, because somebody comes in and says, I'm feeling down. Well, let's see what we got in the sample cabinet over here today for you.
17 minute appointments. I mean, if anyone, our audience out there, who takes any of these things, may have been in those situations where it's like, wow, that was a really quick exam to give me drugs that can dramatically alter my thinking. That's always been disturbing to me, but it is unfortunately the norm, which I'm going to guess you would agree needs to change. Each one of those short psychiatric appointments ended with a new prescription, and it wasn't all psychiatrists that were handing out the tic-tacs. Nobody stopped to ask whether the first 12 had done anything except make her worse. Is that a failure of the doctor? Is that what basically 17 minute appointments are designed to produce?

**Shavaun Scott** (4:10)
Yeah, I have known a handful of wonderful psychiatrists. So there are some that really follow up closely. They coordinate care. If the person has a psychotherapist who they're doing talk therapy with, they talk with that person. They really try to clarify diagnosis, so I don't want to say it's all of them.

**Tony Brueski** (4:32)
No, not at all.

**Shavaun Scott** (4:33)
Yeah, but in a lot of cases, there's a tremendous pressure for them to see a lot of people because of the doctor shortage. And so it's almost like people are being churned and, you know, push through the system, and there's not the time for the follow-up care. And, you know, is the doctor working in a hospital setting or a group which is demanding that they practice that way?