Psychiatry Pros and Cons

[appletrees]

Thinking of Psychiatry.
How much reading/studying is there in Psychiatry?
What's the schedule like?
How often is call?
How different is out vs inpatient work?
What did you love and hate about the field?
what do you wish you knew before you started?
What's the job market like?
Would you have chosen this all over again if you had to apply now?
Is there a certain personality type that would be great or awful in this field?
How do you deal with patients who are violent or really sick?
Is there a high degree of burnout in psychiatry just due to the nature of this field?
What else can you tell me about the field?

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[Leo Aquarius]

The answers you seek all lay somewhere in this Psychiatry board, you just have to use the search function. (Some are a few inches down on the main list of threads - try the scroll function on your computer screen.)

You must not even be in medical school yet because some of these questions cannot be generalized to all of psychiatry and a med student would know that much. Where are you in your training?

 

[wolfvgang22]

Thinking of Psychiatry.
How much reading/studying is there in Psychiatry? About the same as any other field of medicine. A lot.
What's the schedule like? It can vary greatly. I work 40 to 60 hours a week, I do outpatient only. In residency I worked 55 to 80 hours per week, averaged about 55 to 60. In med school I did the same.
How often is call? It can vary. I was on call working 30 hours straight every third day in residency. Did the same in med school. In my current outpatient job I get called for an ER consult one or two nights a week every 4th week only most of the time. I don't so inpatient, which can be more. I don't do inpatient because call burned me out in med school and residency. Different med schools and residencies vary some. Many of my colleagues did what I did, some didn't do nearly as much call in their programs.
How different is out vs inpatient work? Most psychiatrists do a little of both. Private practice outpatient generally allows one to see less sick, higher functioning patients. Inpatient and community based public outpatient is generally the same set of patients, just inpatient is more acute. Mostly only patients in the state hospitals are hospitalized for long periods.
What did you love and hate about the field? Hate writing long notes. It's emotionally draining. Love the challenge, love psychotherapy, love being good at something most people aren't and being needed. Love seeing people improve, keeping them out of the hospital, staying with their families.
what do you wish you knew before you started? Med school turned me into a perfectionist, made me more cynical, more snobby, ultra competitive. I'm working on those things. Also made me much mentally tougher and disciplined. If you can do this, you can learn anything.
What's the job market like? Fantastic.
Would you have chosen this all over again if you had to apply now? Yes.
Is there a certain personality type that would be great or awful in this field? No. One must develop empathy and patience, and have compassion and dedication. Patients benefit from different personalities as long as you have these.
How do you deal with patients who are violent or really sick? You learn this in training. You work on a treatment team.
Is there a high degree of burnout in psychiatry just due to the nature of this field? Not more than most medical specialists.
What else can you tell me about the field?

Brief answers above in red. This is naturally only scratching the surface a little tiny bit. If you are really interested, browse the forum, and read, a lot. Good doctors eat, live, breathe their specialty, like any other high level professional.

 

[hamstergang]

I think it's worth noting that OP posted in the general residency forum that she was burnt out and was looking for the easiest residency to get into, with the least reading and fewest hours. After getting a few responses, she posted this thread in 3 of the suggested forums.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

OK, I think I will do our specialty a service by stating that psychiatry is hard and you have to work at it to be good at it. It is far from an easy way to get out of working like a doctor and please go elsewhere if this is your goal.

 

[FlowRate]

I hear PM&R is nice this time of year.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I hear PM&R is nice this time of year.

She already asked...
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/pmr-pros-and-cons.1165887/

 

[wolfvgang22]

Well, I hope you find what you're looking for, appletrees. I've been burnt out before, too. Make sure you take a break and choose something you'll enjoy working hard doing. Psychiatrists can and do get burned out sometimes, so you have to like helping people with mental illness to do it for long.

 

[deleted314290]

If you are burnt out already, Psychiatry will finish you off in a maelstrom of self loathing and despair.

 

[shan564]

Thinking of Psychiatry.
How much reading/studying is there in Psychiatry?
What's the schedule like?
How often is call?
How different is out vs inpatient work?
What did you love and hate about the field?
what do you wish you knew before you started?
What's the job market like?
Would you have chosen this all over again if you had to apply now?
Is there a certain personality type that would be great or awful in this field?
How do you deal with patients who are violent or really sick?
Is there a high degree of burnout in psychiatry just due to the nature of this field?
What else can you tell me about the field?

This range of questions suggests that you're not yet familiar with the fact that it's considered impolite to ask questions on a forum without searching to see if it's already been answered. Each of these questions has been thoroughly answered already, so it's a waste of our time to answer it again. But I'll lend my 2 cents like the above person already did.

1. Reading/studying: Similar to any other field if you want to be a good psychiatrist. Some people do get away by skimping on this, but they're not good doctors. You can be a lazy doctor regardless of the specialty.
2. Schedule: Quite flexible as an attending. But that's also true in most specialties. If you want, you could do outpatient private practice for 3 hours a week. If you want, you can work 80 hours a week. Obviously, the financial reward will be proportional to your hours. In residency, the schedule is more chill than other specialties, but varies depending on the program - some programs will work you harder than others, but it's hard to get good training if you don't work hard (although that's not necessarily a direct relationship).
3. Call: Very very variable.
4. Out/inpatient: Very different, like every other specialty.
5. Love/hate: I could write an entire post about what I love about the field (and I actually did that a few days ago, if you just look at that thread). Not much that I hate.
6. Wish I knew: Can't say that there's anything I've learned after 2.5 years of residency that would have made me less likely to choose psychiatry.
7. Job market: Very strong. Definitely a buyer's market.
8. I'd definitely do it again, 100%.
9. Personality type: I've enountered the whole gamut of personalities in psych.
10. Dealing with violent/sick patients: That's a complicated issue that requires years of training to learn how to do optimally, so I can't just explain it in a few sentences. In short, you'll be quite comfortable with it after your training.
11. Look at the Medscape burnout survey. Psychiatry is one of the most benign on that list.