Many people do not seek psychiatric treatment due to the stigma of this category of illnesses or due to a lack
of insurance coverage. Since such a high percentage of adults have mental illness, many of them also have medical
or surgical needs and are admitted to medical surgical units. The health care system perpetuates the stigma
of mental illness in subtle ways by not having a psychiatric patients name on the outside of the chart when all of
the medical surgical patient’s names are on the outside of charts. In so doing, we are “advertising” that it is
something to be ashamed of