For those who are in psychiatry, do you receive the same respect....?

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Perseverance7779311

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For those who are in the psychiatry field, would you say that your patients and colleagues respect you as an actual doctor, or do you think you receive less respect for your specialty? When you introduce yourself to people you meet outside of the hospital, do you tell them that you are a doctor, or do you tell them that you are a psychiatrist. Im really interested in going to med school for psychiatry and I was just wondering about these topics.:)

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Well, we are "actual doctors." There are some people who think psychiatry is a bit weaker as a specialty (check out the residency forum where people are making assumptions about how cushy psych call is), but specialties are always bashing other specialties so that's not a big deal.

Within the general population, some people confuse psychiatry and psychology and aren't sure that psychiatrists are physicians. Patients who are seeing a psychiatrist all seem to know what you do, though.

Personally I don't think respect and the perception of being an "actual doctor" should influence your decision here. Going to medical school is a big time commitment, and you've got to want to actually go to medical school and not just be a psychiatrist for it to not be horribly miserable for you.
 
I believe the your performance as a doctor, of whatever field, will eventually determine the amount of respect people give you in your workplace. I've noticed that some people do give psychiatrists a different level of treatment vs. the other professions. While some don't consider psychiatrists real medical doctors, I've seen others see psychiatrists as somehow mystical, kind of like a teenager in the 80s thinking a ninja could somehow read people's minds.

Most of the medical doctors I've seen in a medical hospital that did not respect psychiatrists as a whole often-times changed their opinion if the psychiatrist they dealt with did a good job. Several of the complaints I've heard from non-psychiatric medical doctors were things that I believed were completely justifiable. E.g. a medical consult for HTN when the patient's highest recorded BP was 135/83. When an IM sees a psychiatrist chronically request consults of this nature, the response I've seen was perfectly understandable.

Several psychiatrists do forget their medicine, even when it's supposed to be the guidelines to still practice some within the box of psychiatry. E.g. ADA/APA guidelines for checking on metabolic status when one is on an antipsychotic.
 
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Psychiatrists don't get the same respect as other doctors.

It's something you have to deal with in this field.
 
Psychiatrists don't get the same respect as other doctors.

It's something you have to deal with in this field.

I have not found this to be true. Almost every family medicine doc has the utmost respect for a good psychiatrist. They know how difficult it is, having to do much of the work themselves in shortage areas, at least.

I spent most of my 3rd year of medical school debating whether to admit my interest in psych, or to lie and say "I'm still not sure..." I decided early on just to confess, and every single doctor I worked with told me that it is a great field and that I'd be really needed. No one seemed to think psychiatrists weren't really doctors, and this includes some pretty surgeon-type surgeons.

Amongst the public, the reactions are somewhat more mixed, but still mostly positive. It's the rare person these days who hasn't had some mental health treatment, and for the most part their experiences have been good. As soon as I admit my desire to do child, the response 98% of the time is: "Oh good! Can you see my kid? He's got ADHD and we can't find anyone to see him. The waiting lists here are over a year long."

Once in a while, you'll get someone who falls among the group who think that all psychiatrists just want to overmedicate and send you on your way (usually because you had an experience like that), but usually all it takes is one story about how you say, found out that a guy's depression was really related to his hemochromatosis, or cancer, or thyroid disease, etc...and they shut up pretty quick. It also helps if you're not the kind of doc that throws medicines at everyone willy-nilly...
 
Psychiatrists don't get the same respect as other doctors.

It's something you have to deal with in this field.

There's a lot of truth to this, even if if we do adequately qualify the myriad exceptions.

The better point may be that the way in which we are respected in our niches is more than sufficient for you to go home at the end of the day and feel good about the work you've done, if that's work you like doing.

I remember working at a summer camp while I was in college, and some girl like fell and cracked her head open, and one of the other parents, who was a physician, came over to help. She went to the hospital and was fine, but I later heard one of the other parents complaining about how the other woman "wasn't a real doctor, she's an anesthesiologist."

So pretty much everything that isn't an internist/fp/pediatrician generalist or subspecialist or a surgeon is open to somebody dissing you.

In our common parlance, a real doctor is the person that inappropriately gives you antibiotics for your cold. If you do something else, somebody out there is going to misunderstand what you do.
 
I'm the only child psych in my area and have no trouble with this. Many ask me general medical questions and tons ask about psyc issues for their friends and family.

People will make the occ. joke out of ignorance and I just ignore it like I would if they were making any other type of insulting comment. After being in this business for the years I have, I have pretty thick skin and a forgiving heart.
 
im very worried about this coming into medical school...i wanna tell people that i really like psych but i know it kinda throws me in a weird position....i mean i have to just be proud of what i like....i dont look down on any other fields so i dont like it when people look down on psych.
but i realized its always the people that look down on psych that have some family member who needs help. thats when they come crying for your help
 
So pretty much everything that isn't an internist/fp/pediatrician generalist or subspecialist or a surgeon is open to somebody dissing you.

In our common parlance, a real doctor is the person that inappropriately gives you antibiotics for your cold. If you do something else, somebody out there is going to misunderstand what you do.

Very true! I think that the public also gets confused about whether anesthesiologists and opthamologists are "real doctors," as compared to nurse anesthetists and optometrists. It doesn't help that in shows like Grey's Anatomy, anesthesiologists don't exist at all; the surgeon calls out the vitals and orders adjustment of sedation. Unless you do surgery, treat infectious disease, deliver babies, or treat cardiac arrest (as in, "is there a doctor in the house? this man has collapsed!") your job doesn't fit the public's idea of a "doctor." Just like a "real dog" is more of a laborador than a great pyranees or a pug. The general public also does not understand what most lawyers do, the differences between a traffic court judge and a federal magistrate and a state court judge, or really the differences between job titles and training for almost every field that they don't work in themselves. Psychologists with PhD's are doctors, they just aren't physicians, and when people ask me, "so, what makes you a psychiatrist and not a psychologist is that you're an actual doctor?" the answer becomes tricky. For the past week I've been saying "I'm a recently graduated doctor starting my residency specializing in psychiatry" and so far so good, people seem to get it. Of course this is Boston, medical students and doctors seem to be a higher percent of the population than where I just came from (I'd be interested in the actual numbers, can't find them).
 
who cares! I am a DO and I am a psych resident. I love what I do. There are other residencies in-house and it really don't matter what they think. I have a job to do and I love doing it! I walk around in my domain and feel very much a integral part of the healing environment. I am treating patients, writing notes, interacting with intelligent, like-minded attendings/colleagues.

I couldn't be happier. We all also get together and jab at other specialties such as how useless ER docs are, etc!. LOL Good times!

cheers.!

Walk around the place like you own it. Own your profession and you will be fine!.
 
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No matter what field you enter there will be people that insult your choice. Surgery thinks IM is worthless. Everyone hates the ER people. Family hates dermatology. These are just a few examples at hospitals I've been to. No specialty is immune to insults.

You just have to learn to tune it out - no matter what field you choose.
 
I remember a medstudent asked an ER doctor about his job. I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact words but it was something to the effect of....

-I like my job, but I usually get patients are not thankful, they see me as a servant, anytime I call a unit to call a patient they are rude to me because they don't want a new patient, and whenever I deal with other departments it's usually due to a turf-war.-

Every field has pros and cons. My dad is surgeon. He's pretty much at work all the time, even when he's home. He gets beeped all the time, and when he's home, he's still in work mode, more concerned about his patients than other matters.

IMHO the benefits of psychiatry, if you like the field, far outweigh the cons. You can build your hours to pretty much whatever you want (a mere handful a week to whatever upper limit you want), high flexibility in practice types (emergency, outpatient only, inpatient, consults, private practice) and if you do a good job people will come to respect you over time.
 
Psychiatrists don't get respect because of the nature of their study. Neurologists should suffer the same fate, but they do a good job at keeping some degree of secrecy like they have some special ability that no one else has when it comes to the brain.

Other physicians forget their roots, the physical exam and history came first. They have moved into a realm of diagnostic imaging and results, while psychiatrists have not really had that revolution (yet).

Add to equation that most physicians do not like or understand mental health patients very well, its easier to assume they are "crazy" and that their is nothing to figure out. Anyone who works in the field knows how difficult achieving a positive outcome is and the amount of intellectual power that goes into making a patient better (imo) far outstrips the other specialties.
 
Totally dependent on your fund of knowledge, the way you carry yourself, and doing good quality work.

Undoubtedly, you will lose respect if you forget your basic medicine - that which you've learned side by side and shoulder to shoulder with every other medical doctor. As mentioned above, too often are consults called for things such as a bp of 130 or a simple UTI. If you fall into this category of psychiatrist, then you will have lost the respect of many.

If you are confident and provide good patient care, you will be looked at exactly the same as any other physician. A part of this means integrating with other physicians as well and not isolating yourself amongst just psychiatrists. In other words, being part of a team.
 
who cares! ...I have a job to do and I love doing it! ...I am treating patients, writing notes, interacting with intelligent, like-minded attendings/colleagues.

Walk around the place like you own it. Own your profession and you will be fine!.
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

As a new PGY1 resident leading the inpt team tomorrow for the first time ('trained' last week), I like and will take your advice. Thanks for sharing.
 
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