Life of a Psychiatrist

[PublicHealth]

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Any practicing psychiatrists care to describe their typical workday?

Also, what are the advantages of pursuing psychiatry as a career?

 

[PublicHealth]

Gee...71 views and not one reply! Anyone!?

 

[Thewonderer]

Originally posted by PublicHealth
Gee...71 views and not one reply! Anyone!?

Most people here are either residents or students. They don't consider themselves having a "typical" psychiatrist schedule yet.

Advantage:
Psych illnesses are simply fascinating, mind-boggling, interesting, cool, and sometimes downright bizarre......

In some sense, psych still needs to group people into different "illnesses" (i.e. depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc.) because otherwise, you are not going to get paid. Some of these groupings can be arbitrary or in a grey zone (acute psychotic d/o v.s. schizophrenifrom v.s. schizotypal PD v.s. schizoaffective v.s. substance-induced psychosis.... it is not like all the pts freely tell you about their wild substance abuse hx or remembered that they had exactly 13 days of affected moods without ANY sx of psychosis....). But despite that need to categorize pts, everyone who comes in with depression has slightly different stories and that makes it a whole lot interesting then trying to piece together the necessary 2 major + 1 minor criteria for rheumatic fever or spending hours on the phone with pathologists to pin down the correct diagnosis and tumor staging....

Other than that, there is no advantage in going into psych because you can get easy lifestyle and better pay in other fields of medicine (plus, a heck lot more respect from other docs and layman). enough said. 😀

 

[willow212]

Hi PublicHealth,

I was a little confused about how to answer your questions, as I'm not sure what your background is and what specifically you want to know about the field. But I'll give it a shot (sorry if it's too basic).

I'm assuming that you've already read a lot of what has already been posted on the psychiatry section about why other people have chosen the field. (If not, I believe there's a "why psychiatry" thread out there somewhere").

As far as typical work day, I don't know that there is a "typical" day since many psychiatrists do such varied things during the week. I guess I'm not the best authority on this, as I have not yet started residency, but I can tell you what some people I've met during interviews/clerkships have done.

A good number of residents start out working on an inpatient unit at an academic center right after they graduate. On my clerkships, the attendings would come in around 8:30 am for morning report (where you hear how the patients did overnight). Then they would run team meetings, where the residents/students discussed the patients and treatment plans, with more time spent on new admissions. Then, the attending would see the new patients with the residents/students. The rest of the day would be spent making treatment plans, having family meetings and meetings with social work/nursing, teaching residents, and seeing some private therapy/pharm patients.

There are other psychiatrists who work mainly in private practice, and who see a mixture of psychopharm and therapy patients in their private offices. Others do consult-liaison psychiatry, forensics, child, etc. A lot of psychiatrists are involved in teaching, research, or public policy work. It's so varied, though, that it's hard to do justice answering the question.



As far as the advantages of pursuing psychiatry as a career, I think each person has their own reasons. Some commonalities I have seen are:
1. Interest in working with underserved/mentally ill population
2. Fascination with the mind, from biological and psychological viewpoints
3. Love of introspection and ability to learn about yourself and how you can use your own mind as a therapeutic tool
4. Flexibility and variety in what you do with your day
5. Interesting/philosophical, humanistic, supportive colleagues
6. Ability to help patients deal with profoundly personal issues, in a holistic way (i.e. looking at social environment, childhood influences, biology/genetics, personality dispositiion)


Are there more specific things you are interested in finding out?

 

[PublicHealth]

Thank you for your replies!

I was basically interested in what psychiatrists do on a daily basis. Your posts were very informative.

I am currently in the process of deciding between med school/psychiatry and grad school/clinical psychology, so I just wanted to get obtain information about both careers. Having worked in psychology for two years, I am well aware of what clinical psychologists do, but wanted to learn more about clinical psychiatrists.

Where are you guys/gals in your training? Which programs are you in or considering?

 

[willow212]

I have often wondered about what the differences are between the psychiatry vs. clinical psychology career paths myself.

I'm sure you know that there is a lot of overlap between the fields and consequently a "turf battle" has been going on between the two fields.

Being a 4th year med student headed into pyschiatry, I have my biases as to what psychiatrists should know and do.

I believe that psychiatrists have a unique niche in their approach to mental illness - the ability and obligation to consider all the medical reasons which could be causing/exacerbating a mental illness, and the ability to understand systemic effects and interactions of medications. I think the medical approach to patients is a very unique one, which is hard to articulate.

I would guess another difference between the two fields is the patient population that is treated by each. Psychiatrists probably treat more schizophrenic/other psychotic patients who don't normally tolerate therapy well.

I don't know enough about clinical psychology to know what other differences exist between the two fields. Maybe you can educate me on what you feel the unique niche of clinical psychologists is.

Both are great choices, and I guess it depends on what your personality is. Good luck with your decision!