The U.S. Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), launched in 2015, isa nationwide initiative to move away from “one-size-fits-all” medicineand instead to tailor treatment strategies to a patient's uniquecharacteristics (HealthIT.gov). The long-term goals of this effortfocus on bringing precision medicine to all areas of health on a largescale (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2020). Psychiatry is exceptionallycomplex compared to many other medical fields whereprecision diagnostics rely on quantified laboratory values, imagingfindings, cytology, etc. Psychopathology is primarily diagnosed byan expert clinician's judgment applying criteria from the Diagnosticand Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (AmericanPsychiatric Association, 2013). Over recent years, some have questionedthe utility of such psychiatric taxonomy in present day clinicaltreatment (Dalgleish, Black, Johnston, & Bevan, 2020). These diagnosticaspects complicate the goal of achieving precision medicinefor mental illness. Moving forward, reframing mental illness as disordersof brain functioning may facilitate these discussions (Fernandeset al., 2017). Many will associate the term “precision medicine” inpsychiatry with current efforts to discover genetic variables and biotypesfor mental illness. I offer an alternate use of the term here.
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