What do inpatient psychiatrists do all day? Do they interview each patient every day, or do they just function as the medical authority behind what the nurses and orderlies do throughout the day and only talk to patients on occasion?
Don't know if this is taboo, but I recently watched "one flew over the cuckoo's nest", and it seemed like the psychiatrists had a pretty low profile around there, at least with respect to the patients perspective. Is that a very accurate depiction of an inpatient psychiatric environment?
It depends heavily on the work environment. As a student, I've worked in a number of different places, and I'll tell you what I've seen. I'm sure the attendings here will fill in their points of view for their respective jobs.
Site 1, a community acute inpatient unit: Doc would see patients on the unit in the morning, then leave at lunch to see his outpatient patients (of the same community mental health center) in the afternoon. Someone was on call to cover the afternoons. Night call was from home via rotating beeper call.
Site 2, a state child inpatient unit: Doc would come in a bit later, and see patients on a treatment team in the morning. Staff new patients, see any problem patients. Orders were done. Then doc would start seeing patients individually in their office on the unit. This was broken up by collateral calls, talks with family and community resources regarding discharge or treatment planning, and other duties.
Site 3, a state adult inpatient unit: Same as Site 2, except doc was more removed from my own site. Not sure what they did after treatment team rounds, as I was busy doing didactics and other stuff. I imagine they saw patients.
Site 4, an academic inpatient unit: Treatment team rounds in the am, then round and see patients on unit. Orders given to residents. Then doc would go off to see office patients, work on research projects, teach, and was available by phone to handle any unit problems the residents had questions about.
Site 5, an academic C-L team: Doc rounded with team on C-L patients in the morning until we were done, usually by 1-2pm. Some afternoons he did Geriatrics rounds, others he had teaching duties.
So, they stay busy. It's not like they're sitting in their office playing Skyrim all day. Really.