Article archive / April 1, 2011
Originally published: . Volume 2, No. 8. Source pages: 13.
Writing on behalf of Grassroots of Psychology in Louisiana, Dr. Alicia Pellegrin requested that the state medical board revise two phrases in the “rules” for medical psychologists. On
February 4th, Dr. Robert Marier, Executive Director of the medical board, wrote back to her, thanking her and her organization for providing comments, and he included a report of changes in the rules sent to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.
Pellegrin had asked that the term in the proposed rules, “psychologist practitioner,” be changed back as it was in the original text of Act 251, “psychological practitioner.” Also she asked that the medical board to change the phrase “…shall include the practice of psychology as defined…” back to the original wording in 251, “… includes those practices as defined…”
While the medical board noted that it was not constrained to duplicate the exact wording of laws, the board said, “On the other hand, while it does not perceive any substantive distinction between the term psychological practitioner and psychologist practitioner, because the latter term does not appear elsewhere in the proposed rules, and for ease of reference to Act 251, the Board will accept the commenter’s suggestion, in part, by substituting the term psychological practitioner for psychologist practitioner within the definition of Medical Psychologist.”
Also, “…the Board is not disinclined to accept the commenter’s suggestion in this regard and tract the precise language of the Law in the last sentence of the term’s definition. Thus, Section 3903A, where the proposed rule would have defined Medical Psychology as: ‘… the practice of medical psychology shall include the practice of psychology as defined in La. Rev. Stat. §37:2352(5),’ in the final form of the rule that we have adopted that portion of the definition will instead read: ‘…the practice of medical psychology includes those practices as defined in la. Rev. Stat. §37:2352(5).’”
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