Medical procedures are a lot like, say, hip-huggers. They catch on in some places more than others. But what's the most variably used procedure of all?
The answer is ECT--electroconvulsive therapy. As many as 100,000 people receive ECT each year. But a nationwide survey of psychiatrists indicates that ECT--once known as "shock therapy"--isn't used at all in a third of American cities. And that's robbing us of the most effective treatment around for severe depression that won't respond to medication, says Harvard psychiatrist Richard Hermann, M.D.
ECT has gotten a bad rap, Hermann insists. Those horrifying scenes in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest raise the specter of electric shocks administered to punish the helpless denizens of run-down institutions. But this is not your father's ECT: Today the procedure is given most often to middle- and upper-class patients in classy, rigorously monitored private facilities, report Hermann, Robert Dorwart, M.D., and colleagues.
