A psychiatrist definitely does not always know these things. Mine told me there should be no Citalopram withdrawals and that I should taper by cutting my dose in half over a 2 week period.

They were absolutely wrong as I have serious withdrawal reactions to Citalopram. It took me a month of micro-dosing down to safely get off a drug I was on for 15 yrs. And even then I was having constant brain & body zaps, that feel like short circuiting, for a full month after I dosed down to nothing. 6 mos later & I still can't sleep more than 6 hrs.

How did I know this was going to happen? Going cold turkey when my script ran out. I even told my psych about it numerous times but they just brushed it off.

You are assuming a lot about the competency of some specific doctor who knows where in the world...

A GP nowadays is a triage person and nothing more. Sadly. My old school GP back in the day was a proper doctor. My current one is a really really nice guy who knows less about anything than I do. I literally tell him what to prescribe me and he doesn't know what it is. Whenever I have some issue he never diagnoses it but sends me off to radiology because those doctors will come up with a diagnosis for him. He then might treat if simple or more likely triage me to see a specialist.

I kind of find it cute to be able to be paid for this. I could do it easily and better but I would have to spend years studying medicine, which at 50 is not an option anymore

(this is just to my modern GP's job. I could definitely today NOT do my old proper full-on-doctor GP's job)

Honestly, this is where chatbots and AI come into play and make an astonishing difference. I’m an AI realist/pessimist but its usefulness in general medicine is going to save millions of lives due to doctor ineptitude. They are after all just well read mechanics