negative associations with Psych

[OBfan]

I recently was telling some of my close friends about how I have decided to go into psychiatry. They were all very happy for me and my decision. They all know me very well and know that I love talking and working with people who have undergone some emotional damage so they were even more supportive of my decision.

Later that one of my friends wanted to watch "Santa Claus" the comedy movie. In the movie there is a character played by Judd Reinhold. He plays the role of a Psychiatrist who is a bit of a jerk.

When someone refers to him as being a doctor the main character says "he is not a doctor, he's a psychiatrist" My friends immediately turned to me and said-"you see, thats what your going to have to deal by becoming a psychiatrist" I was pretty upset about it.

Have any of you out there who are in your residency or actually done with residency have had to deal with this crap.

I honestly thought about it and really i dont think that it matters to me. After making the mental decision of wanting to go into psych I have felt like a huge weight has been lifted from me and I actually feel a lot of peace when I go to the hospital. I am looking forward to learning and becoming great at my future trade.

Thanks and all the best!

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[mercury1980]

i think this is something we all go thru...check out this thread

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=322489

 

[drwatson]

This is an interesting point though. The idea of not getting enough respect from other medical specialties has been addressed. In addition to the factors that go into the decision process.

But I am wondering about how relationships with friends or family have changed once you have gone into Psychiatry. Are friends more reluctant to share problems for fear that you would analyze their situaions? Do family members sigh when you offer suggestions on how to deal with their latest crisis, regardless of if there is any psychiatric condition involved?

 

[Poety]

My family still consults me on anything medical going on with their lives. i still acted as the health care proxy until the death of my grandmother. i have had no negative attitude about going into psych, except for maybe from other psychs that realize how green i am.

I relaly had no idea how complex wtih field is. I think my thoughts were disillusioned into thinking its a relatively cush and easy practice to get into. In reality, there IS alot to learn from neurological diseases, underlying medical diseases, PD, comorbidities etc. Until I started doing it, I never realized exactly how complicated thse pt.s are since you're not only treating their MI, you ARE the primary care for their HTN, DM, (which may be secondary to an eating d) etc et - I fee like a young skywalker, ohhh I have so much to learn.

If you start reading into all the works on neurotransmitter and mesolimbic pathways involved in all these differenc behaviors too, you'll find that an enormouns amount of this stuff is intertwined to medical conditions that IM's won't touch.

And lastly don't forget, you need to evaluate a patients family hs (psych) drug use (psych) past psych hosp and tx. what meds there were on and why they're off them now, which docs thy'fe seen fof the condition and whether or not they are clean enoughto make a real axis 1 diagnosis. All these are treated different which makes it hard - this is NOT cookbook medicine at ALL like I thoght it would be.

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