Hey hey, cashart!
With the embedded responses, I couldn't figure how to bring them onto here, so will kind of be winging it...

Interesting on the grapevine thing. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were so. Less accountability...

On the "SO non confrontational"... I am too most of the time (except when Rabid Wolverine comes out! ). But remember, there are ways to question and hold someone accountable without being overtly confrontational. Here is one from personal experience...

First, a little backstory. When I was first correctly dx'd, the first med to try was Lamictal. Though I'd been dx'd by a psychiatrist, I had this kooky idea that I'd have my GP do the actual prescribing, probably trying to avoid the expense of appointments with the Pdoc. (Ironically enough, we're talking the GP that had previously mis-dx'd me, bringing on the hell that is ADs alone.) In what should not have been a surprise, GP's psych ineptitude was still intact. She wanted to titrate me up at a ridiculously fast rate! I'd done enough reading to know that this was not only out of line, but increased the likelihood of side effects.

Why risk this on a med that was a solid choice for me? So I said something along the lines of, "From everything I've read, that is a very fast titration." She said something about that I shouldn't worry, it was just fine. I asked her for the source she based this on.
See? I didn't have to "get into it" with her, but let her know she had to show accountability.

She did give me a source (can't remember what). I'm not even sure if I checked it out, because my Do You Never Learn?! bell was already going off, and I knew psych had to handle it. The GP's prescribing attitude was not as egregious as your Pdoc's, but still, I wanted to stay solidly mainstream, where the scientific consensus was.