Meet Michael: GP

Dr Michael Wang has spent the last decade working as a GP, with a growing focus on mental health and ADHD care. After working in a community mental health clinic for five years, under the guidance of psychiatrist Dr David Codyre, he developed a deep, nuanced approach to ADHD assessment and treatment — one built on empathy, education, and destigmatisation. We sat down with him to talk about diagnosis, medication, and what he wishes every person questioning their mental health already knew.

You've been a GP for about 10 years. What drew you toward mental health and ADHD specifically?

Early in my career, I kept noticing a large group of people stuck in the middle — their lives were genuinely impaired, but they didn't quite meet the threshold for hospital-level care. Those cut-offs are pretty arbitrary, and honestly, I think they're cost-related, which is unfortunate.

I also had a personal connection to it. A lot of people close to me have faced mental health challenges, and I've had my own. I found that having a framework to make sense of those experiences was incredibly helpful — and that started seeping into my consultations more and more. Eventually, I realised that a 15-minute appointment just wasn't enough to do it well. When a psychiatrist at our clinic, Dr David Codyre, needed someone to take over that side of his practice, I jumped at the chance. I sat in on his consultations, had ongoing discussions with him — that apprenticeship style suited me far better than lecture-based learning anyway.

ADHD gradually took up a larger and larger proportion of what we were seeing. And it's something that's hard to truly understand just by reading about it. You really have to get to know where people are coming from.

What are some ADHD signs in adults that often go unnoticed?

It's a broad question, because people who have undiagnosed ADHD have usually already built their own explanations for their difficulties — they just don't have the right framework yet.

Low self-esteem is a big one, particularly around work. There's often this sense of imposter syndrome — people achieve things, but feel like they've been "gaming the system" somehow, like they don't quite deserve their successes. Struggling with weight management is another one that people don't always connect to ADHD, but the condition affects your ability to regulate eating — what I'd call boredom eating, opening the fridge just because you need some kind of stimulation.

Then there's depression or anxiety that just isn't getting better despite treatment. That can be a signal that something underlying is being missed.

Are there differences in how ADHD presents in women versus men?

Definitely. From what I see, we're living through a big wave of diagnoses, and there are slightly more women than men being diagnosed right now — largely because women were more likely to be missed as children.

I think society has different expectations for women, particularly those with families. There's this pressure to have it all together, at least on the surface. So women often come to me having already developed an elaborate set of strategies just to survive day-to-day. The masking tends to be more thorough.

When they finally get a diagnosis, you can almost feel the relief. They suddenly understand just how hard they've been working to hold everything together. In terms of presentation, women also tend to show less overt physical hyperactivity — it might be more internal, a racing mind, or fidgeting in ways that nobody notices because they've learned to hide it after being told off for it so many times growing up.

GPs can now diagnose ADHD and prescribe medication. What are your thoughts on this change?

It's something I've been looking forward to for a long time. For a while, my assessments and those of the psychiatrists I worked with were almost always in agreement — it had started to feel like a rubber stamp at the end of a process I was already doing well.

For me personally, it makes things more streamlined. But more importantly, this change opens the door for many more GPs to start doing what I do — and that dramatically expands access for people who need it. So many people want a diagnosis but face enormous barriers: cost, or wait times that stretch on for years. This should help.

I understand some worry about over-diagnosis, or those who are uncomfortable with the idea of "medicalising" aspects of human experience. I respect those perspectives. But the way I think about it, a diagnosis is just a more helpful and accurate explanation for what someone is experiencing. If the old explanation was "you're not trying hard enough" or "you're just anxious," those are also explanations — they're just not very useful ones. And unhelpful explanations cause real harm.

What does an ADHD assessment actually look like with you?

Every clinician does things a little differently. For us, people fill out some research-backed questionnaires beforehand — they're a useful starting point, but honestly, they're not the centrepiece of the assessment. Most of it happens in the conversation.

My approach is to come at it from the angle of: ADHD or not, what help does this person actually need? I'm not running through a checklist. Sometimes someone might have ADHD, but that's not actually the main issue affecting their life — and I don't want to miss what's really going on.

In terms of making people feel comfortable, I try to be genuinely non-reactive. I don't jump in with "oh, that's totally normal" or make comments that minimise what someone's telling me. Phrases like that sound reassuring, but they can actually be quite invalidating — and if someone leaves a consultation feeling like their experience wasn't taken seriously, that's harmful, regardless of what diagnosis they leave with. Whatever we might think about the underlying cause of an experience, the experience itself is real, and it belongs to the person.

A lot of people worry that seeking a diagnosis means looking for an excuse. How do you handle that?

I actually address that directly in consultations, because it's such a common barrier. The distinction between an excuse and a reason is really important.

Here's an example: if a parent with ADHD forgets to pick their child up from soccer practice, the child could interpret that as "my parent doesn't care about me" — or they could understand that their parent is naturally more forgetful. Neither interpretation lets the parent off the hook; they still owe their kid an apology, maybe a present. But how someone's behaviour is interpreted — especially in terms of their values and intentions — matters enormously.

The guilt and shame that come with ADHD are often invisible to others. People assume you're going about your day unbothered, but that's rarely the case. The internal experience is just hidden.

How does ADHD intersect with anxiety and depression?

Very commonly, and in a few different ways. ADHD makes everyday tasks harder than they should be, and if you don't have a framework to understand why, you tend to blame yourself. That self-blame accumulates and can lead to depression.

On the anxiety side, an overactive ADHD mind can be experienced directly as anxiety — when your thoughts are racing at a million miles an hour, that can easily become a million worries an hour. Some people describe it as anxiety when it's actually the underlying neurological pattern of ADHD. Whether medication helps depends on what's driving the symptoms.

If someone is already on antidepressants, there's a small chance of interactions with certain ADHD medications — but it's genuinely small, and in those cases we'd make a minor adjustment to accommodate both. For the most part, they're quite compatible.

How do you approach medication conversations with patients who find the topic intimidating?

First things first: we make sure it's medically safe. That means asking about heart conditions, blood pressure, that sort of thing.

Once we've established safety, I try to set realistic expectations — while also acknowledging that it's really hard to describe what these medications feel like until someone actually tries them. For most people, it's safe to try, so I do encourage giving it a go with an open mind.

The range of responses is enormous. Some people describe it as an instant life-changer. Others barely notice anything themselves, but their partner comes in and says, "Please don't ever stop the medication." And of course, if someone decides it's not for them, that's entirely their choice.

One thing I often address is the fear of "mind-altering" medication — this idea that it will change who you are. My view is that it doesn't change who you are underneath. If you tend to interrupt people even though you're trying not to, and you feel bad about it afterwards, that guilt is there because interrupting people isn't actually in line with your values. The medication doesn't change your values — it just makes it easier to act on them. You become more able to express who you actually are. And since these medications are short-acting, by the next day, you're back to your baseline anyway.

What's one thing you wish everyone questioning whether to seek support already knew?

Whatever a doctor says doesn't change who you are. A diagnosis is just someone's interpretation of your experience — a framework to help make sense of things. And you're the one who gets to decide whether that framework is useful to you.

There are doctors with different approaches and real disagreements in the field. That can be daunting. But these are ultimately judgment calls. We're not putting anyone in an MRI scanner. So whatever you hear, take it as something that might be helpful — not as a verdict on who you are.

What's the most important first step after an ADHD diagnosis?

Education. Learn as much as you can about it — and if you're comfortable, share that with the people close to you. Helping the people in your life understand your challenges can make an enormous difference.

By the time most people get to me, they've already done a fair amount of reading. But even with a diagnosis and medication, it doesn't undo a whole lifetime of having struggled without understanding why. That's why therapy or counselling can be so valuable alongside everything else — particularly for things like low self-esteem and rejection sensitivity, which tend to build up over the years. But if I had to name one first step: education, before anything else.

About Michael:

Dr Michael Wang is a GPSI, which means he’s a 'GP with a Special Interest,' focusing on ADHD and mental health. His journey in this field has not only enriched his professional life but also provided invaluable insights into his own experiences and those of his loved ones.

With a passion for sharing his knowledge, Michael aims to help individuals gain a deeper understanding of their mental health, guiding them towards recovery and the fulfilment of their potential. Beehyve clients have told us that Michael makes them feel “supported and heard, and that “meeting him was such a positive experience”.

With five years of experience working in a community mental health clinic under the guidance of Dr David Codyre, a highly respected psychiatrist in the ADHD community, Michael has honed his skills in providing comprehensive mental health care. He specialises in ADHD assessments and diagnosis, and is able to prescribe medications with oversight from Dr Codyre.