Can you give me your "elevator pitch" about why you are interested in psychiatry?

[Thumpar]

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I've been developing some interest in this specialty. I like that the hours are nice and it seems like a stimulating field to work in.

What interests you about psychiatry?

Bonus question:
What does the future of psychiatry look like? Sounds like there is starting to be discussion about neurology and psychiatry merging into one field eventually. Do you think that will happen?

 

[slappy]

This has been covered several times. Use the search function, or start here: Applying For Psychiatry Residency & Great Articles/Books In Psychiatry

 

[Thumpar]

I like to draw new blood on topics. I've read a couple threads already.

Sometimes it's good to revisit a topic.

 

[slappy]

I like to draw new blood on topics. I've read a couple threads already.

Sometimes it's good to revisit a topic.

Why?

 

[Thumpar]

Because different people can come up with different reasons for liking the same thing.

I find it hard to believe that we've exhausted all the nuanced reasons different people have "clicked" with psychiatry.

 

[splik]

Psychiatry and neurology used to be one field. they are not going to combine. Only fantasists who don't understand how the world works seem to think there will be some magical reunification of neurology and psychiatry. Given that medicine has moved to increasing specialization, the idea that neurology and psychiatry would buck the trend and be the exception that proves the rule makes no sense. further, most neurologists are not interested in psychiatry and most psychiatrists are not interested in neurology. This is unfortunate, but it is also true. Neuropsychiatry has always been an extremely unpopular field and view of psychiatry - both for professionals and patients alike. There are only 300 or so people who identify ad neuropsychiatrists in the whole country. Neurology and psychiatry departments used to be one, now with some notable exceptions (e.g. Tulane) they are separate, and SLU recently split their neurology and psychiatry departments into two separate divisions, further underscoring the growing separation of the specialties. combined neurology/psychiatry residencies have largely died off: only a handful of residents dual train each year and it fluctuates from year to year because of inconsistent interest.

Psychiatry is a much larger field than neurology (there are many fold more psychiatrists than there are neurologists, many more psych residency programs, and it is a community based rather than academic based specialty) so how psychiatry (a much larger specialty) could subsume under neurology also does not make sense.

Finally, psychiatry deals with disorders of the brain, but we also deal with motivated behaviors, problems of living and human relations.

 

[Doc1401]

I like to draw new blood on topics. I've read a couple threads already.

Sometimes it's good to revisit a topic.

Great idea. Part of success in psychiatry is also setting firm boundaries, looks like you are off to a good start! 🙂

 

[Mad Jack]

Since my pitch basically is my personal statement, I'll save it for after I (hopefully) match.

 

[Dharma]

Sex, drugs, rock-n-roll?

 

[heroesjourney]

It is the one specialty where someone's subjective experience of their life as being a worthwhile endeavor is an intrinsic concern to the field. Doesn't get much more fundamental than that. Also the interface between the mind-body is endlessly fascinating. I don't see psychiatry and neurology merging because I don't know how that would be possible or desirable. One field is primarily concerned with the fabric of your lived experience and it's relationship with behavior, biology, etc. The other is primarily focused on organic neurological dysfunction. Sure there's some overlap that's covered with a fellowship in the fields, but they're two distinct entities. It does bring to mind a hilarious caricature of this fusion of fields: a man with a razor sharp goatee and a pt looking at a high resolution colorful radio-image of the pt's brain. The doctor is saying "See this little area here in the frontal lobe is the slightly malformed circuitry causing your problems of hypersensitivity to criticism, probably from your experience with adolescent bullying and epigenetics. Take this pill full of nano-robots that will rewire you so that you experience and live your life in an open, rational way. Please fill out this survey on your way out."

 

[pyrrion89]

One field is primarily concerned with the fabric of your lived experience and it's relationship with behavior, biology, etc. The other is primarily focused on organic neurological dysfunction. "

But psychiatry is organic dysfunction at least to some degree. How else would our drugs have a therapeutic target? If psychiatry plays up that its disorders are non-organic, it opens itself up to losing ground to neurology in the coming decades. If scientists map out a more concrete anatomy or neuro-chemistry of tic disorders, schizophrenia or OCD, then the disorders are no longer "non-organic" but rather fall into "neurologic." Psychiatry needs to re-frame itself as a mind-and-behavior specialty that deals with disorders of any underlying cause. Especially as psychologists/therapists/social workers take up the therapy, psychiatrists-as-physicians need to assert their special training in understanding how the body affects mind and behavior. Neurology has always embraced this (look at behavioral neurology), whereas many psychiatrists are willfully ignorant of anything anatomical or biological.

 

[Merely]

^i agree but I want someone smart to provide more insights to this post

 

[hamstergang]

But psychiatry is organic dysfunction at least to some degree. How else would our drugs have a therapeutic target?

Too many bugs in my house is not due to a dysfunctional level of pesticide in the air, yet adding pesticides solves the problem. That is, psychotropic medications could very well help disorders without "organic" dysfunction. (Organic in quotes because some may want to start arguing the definition of that, and I don't want to).

 

[heroesjourney]

But psychiatry is organic dysfunction at least to some degree. How else would our drugs have a therapeutic target? If psychiatry plays up that its disorders are non-organic, it opens itself up to losing ground to neurology in the coming decades. If scientists map out a more concrete anatomy or neuro-chemistry of tic disorders, schizophrenia or OCD, then the disorders are no longer "non-organic" but rather fall into "neurologic." Psychiatry needs to re-frame itself as a mind-and-behavior specialty that deals with disorders of any underlying cause. Especially as psychologists/therapists/social workers take up the therapy, psychiatrists-as-physicians need to assert their special training in understanding how the body affects mind and behavior. Neurology has always embraced this (look at behavioral neurology), whereas many psychiatrists are willfully ignorant of anything anatomical or biological.

I really like the way Hannibal Lector characterized it in the show Hannibal: "The projected image is more interesting than the projector. Until, of course, the projector breaks down." Of course there is an interdependence and overlap between mind/brain/body. I was not positing that there is not an organic component/basis of psychiatric disorders, I think there is just a necessary difference in focus between projection and projector that would be foolish and impractical to obliterate. I thought psychiatry already framed itself that way. I completely agree that it would be ideal if psychiatrists remained illuminated about neuroanatomy and functionality.

 

[Sunny in Psych]

Too many bugs in my house is not due to a dysfunctional level of pesticide in the air, yet adding pesticides solves the problem. That is, psychotropic medications could very well help disorders without "organic" dysfunction. (Organic in quotes because some may want to start arguing the definition of that, and I don't want to).

To all, psychiatry is as much biological, organic, and physical as it is based on emotions and experiences. Look at an MRI of a schizophrenic brain. Why do serotonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine levels affect mood? Just saying... Two separate specialties with lots of overlap.

 

[hamstergang]

To all, psychiatry is as much biological, organic, and physical as it is based on emotions and experiences. Look at an MRI of a schizophrenic brain. Why do serotonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine levels affect mood? Just saying... Two separate specialties with lots of overlap.

My post that you quoted wasn't saying that psychiatric disorders are not biologically based, so I don't know why you wrote this as a reply to me. My post said that the fact that meds work doesn't prove that psychiatric disorders are biologically based.

 

[Sunny in Psych]

My post that you quoted wasn't saying that psychiatric disorders are not biologically based, so I don't know why you wrote this as a reply to me. My post said that the fact that meds work doesn't prove that psychiatric disorders are biologically based.

Apology. I put "to all" bc it looked like it attached to your post although I didn' mean for it to. My phone looks funny on this site.

 

[kzbt624]

I tell them that my upper body isn't strong enough to plant the other kinds of trees 😉