[markroseman]

Compliance with medication regimes and followup care can affect outcomes in cardiology, as in other areas. Understanding a patient's psychiatric illness, psychosocial functioning, and other factors can help predict treatment compliance. That in turn may influence the treatment regime the cardiologist recommends.

Medications that are prone to abuse, ones that may be more complex to take, ones that can be dangerous if someone takes too many... all are things the cardiologist should be aware of which takes some basic psychiatric knowledge.

There are few in cardiology, but many physical health meds can definitely create psychiatric side effects. How do you differentiate those from an existing psychiatric illness?

There's a large body of literature that recognizes the links between cardiac care and mental health, resulting in poorer outcomes, increased system utilization and costs, etc. Saying "this is my area, that's yours" exacerbates this problem.