The 2010s saw “an unusual number of public calls to change privacy rules to permit or require greater disclosure of individuals’ mental health information. . . . Typically, safety concerns are invoked.” Though some states have removed bar and medical licensure application questions requiring disclosure of applicants’ mental health information, “the majority [of state medical boards continue to] ask questions that are unlikely to meet [Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)] standards.” Recently amended questions still unfairly single out applicants with physical or mental health illness or conditions without appropriate justification, and they should be removed from applications for medical licensure. One such recently amended question, from New Mexico’s application, was approvingly decribed by Barrett et al in the Annals of Internal Medicine, and reads as follows:
Do you have or have you been diagnosed with an illness or condition which impairs your judgment or affects your ongoing ability to practice medicine in a competent, ethical and professional manner?
Why State Medical Boards Should Remove Mental Health Questions on Licensure Applications
All but a handful of states continue to ask medical licensure applicants mental health questions, and the overwhelming majority also use terminology similar to New Mexico’s (ie, impair or impairment and affect). These questions should be removed from licensure applications because the presence of these illnesses and conditions does not predict clinical competence. They are especially likely to result in unwarranted disciplinary scrutiny and exclusion of these physicians in the context of misunderstanding within the medical community about mental disorders, the meaning of terms such as impair or affect, and the appropriate application of important ADA rules that protect all physician-employees from unwarranted mental health inquiries.
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-Nicholas D. Lawson, MD
