“Among other things you will find you are not the first one who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.” The legitimacy of this statement by J.D. Salinger is something that is reinforced to me on a daily basis when people find out what I do for a living and then want to discuss how mental health issues have affected them or their families. It seems all of us have been impacted to some degree by the complexities of human behavior.
I am Dr. Terry Chance and the new psychiatrist at Bothwell Regional Health Center. For a lot of people, the idea of a psychiatrist evokes images of a dark office in the basement of the hospital with a couch against the wall for someone to lie on and talk about how they hate not having grown up somewhere else (or not having grown up at all). In reality, my office is located on the third floor of the Bothwell Healing Arts Center near Walmart, and no I don’t have a couch (that is more for psychologists and therapy). Salinger was spot on when he vocalized the mysteries, intrigue and distrust through the above quote. I have noticed that most people tend to be relieved when they come into my office and find that I’m really a pretty normal guy who likes to talk.
I am from Kansas City and have been practicing there for the past seven years. I live just east of Kansas City now and drive to Sedalia Monday through Thursday to work. I have found Sedalia to be a pleasant and inviting place and the people to be genuine. I tend to spend most of my non-working hours playing golf, fishing or coaching basketball. I went to medical school at Kansas City University-College of Medicine, and I did my residency at KU Medical Center. I have been married for 19 years; my wife is a family practice doctor, and we have two sons who are 13 and 17.
I have found over the years that most people aren’t aware of the differences in psychology and psychiatry. The short and sweet of it is that psychologists have a Ph.D., and their clinical practices are usually centered around therapy. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, go to medical school and then complete a residency and tend to primarily manage medications for behavioral health issues. Very rarely do psychiatrists do therapy anymore, though this used to be a more common practice.
I see patients age 18 and up, and I treat all general adult psychiatric issues including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I also perform pre-surgical evaluations for procedures such as bariatric surgery. If you would like to sit down and review whether there are medications that could help improve your day-to-day functioning or quality of life, please call the clinic to schedule an evaluation.
I have found a lot of people have questions about psychiatric issues and disorders but are often reluctant to discuss these. If there are particular diagnoses or psychiatric problems you would like to hear about, please submit these topics to advertising@brhc.org. I will pick topics based on the amount of interest and write brief articles discussing them. Some examples might include comparing and contrasting Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, an article discussing Narcissism and the reasons behind the behaviors it creates, or even the treatment options for various substance dependencies. There are many possible topics, and I will let you decide what we dig into. I look forward to hearing from some of you.
Dr. Chance has office hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday at Bothwell Family Health, and the phone number is 660-827-2500. He sees patients at that clinic, Bothwell Family Medicine Associates and Bothwell Health Center-Truman Lake in Warsaw and consults with providers at other Bothwell clinics.
