any medical doctor of any specialization can legally prescribe anything. that doesn't make it a good idea. a piece of supporting evidence is that the doctor's malpractice insurance may not cover any "cowboy" prescribing tendencies.
I wouldn’t advocate you get a prescription for antipsychotics from your orthopedist, but SSRIs from a GP is probably pretty safe.
Obviously, it depends on the doctor and the symptoms. But a good GP will also refer you out to a specialist when needed. That’s a big part of their job: assessing when to call in a specialist.
I can't even believe I'm having to defend this position in front of this crowd, but now many GP's dismissed the symptoms of women's post-partum depression before it become a topic of mainstream discussion on television talk shows? Doctors are not perfect and are not free from various biases, and having had experience with your particular condition is invaluable to you.
Weird example given you're arguing against GPs prescribing antidepressants because patients may lie.
And I'd like to see someone lying to get SSRIs out of all the possible choices.
You're arguing like something as at stake for you or you have bone to pick, I'm saying very generic anodyne things, i'm arguing for sober reasonableness.
More broadly, in rural settings specialists are often impractical to access. So, the best possible standard of care is effectively off the table.
> I'm saying very generic anodyne things, i'm arguing for sober reasonableness
You're saying vague things that are roughly as controversial as "water is wet" when read literally, but are out of place and tone-deaf in the context of above discussion.
There are many drugs a GP can prescribe that are just as dangerous or more so.
There is a reason SSRI are schedule 4 and not schedule 2 . They cannot kill you the same way [1]
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[1] While there is a lot of politics in the classification and putting weed or LSD in schedule 1 is very questionable the list is generally medically accurate.