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In the title.
What are the most important skills to master as an inpatient psychiatrist?
- Thread starter slowthai
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Knowing how to sneak in and out of the unit without being noticed by other staff or patients.
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How to avoid overmedicating patients while having nurses believe you care
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Practically I agree with Nexus. A good relationship with decent ancillary staff can make or break an inpatient job.
Clinically, knowing when and how to discharge suicidal patients and malingerers along with proper documentation.
Clinically, knowing when and how to discharge suicidal patients and malingerers along with proper documentation.
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Maintaining your medical instincts so you can recognize a) when someone with a psych illness also has something bad going on and needs to get off your unit and to the medical floors ASAP and b) when someone incorrectly diagnosed with psych illness actually has something medical going on.
Knowing when to refer to ECT and how to sell it to hesitant patients and/or families.
Knowing when to refer to ECT and how to sell it to hesitant patients and/or families.
I concur with the idea of delegation, but it's a balance. You should generally not ask people to do things that you don't know how they work. (Ideally don't ask people to do things you haven't done before, but that can be hard.) Be curious and learn how everyone else's job works. You're the team leader, you should know what people are doing and why. It's most important to keep nurses happy, but social workers are a VERY close second. Be extraordinarily nice and supportive to both groups. Food can smooth over mistakes in this area.
A lot! Very bread-and-butter psychiatry, inpatient psych, but the following come to mind:
* Solid diagnostic skills.
* Understanding and monitoring for medical issues of relevance.
* Recognizing what can and can't be accomplished during an inpatient stay.
* Basic and not-so-basic psychopharm, especially for mood disorders and the psychotic disorders.
* Understanding how to implement non-pharmacological interventions, including social interventions and bedside psychotherapy.
* Basic addiction medicine skills, from recognizing and treating withdrawal to medication-assisted treatments, and the first steps in addressing addiction via non-pharmacologicical and psychotherapeutic approaches
* I agree with previous posters that interpersonal skills are important and you're going to have to be able to get along with interdisciplinary colleagues, from social workers to nurses. You're the team leader as an inpatient psychiatrist, so you have to know how to balance leadership and collegiality. I think this last bullet point is likely something that applies to A LOT of jobs in psychiatry and is not particularly unique to inpatient. We all need to be good colleagues and leaders when in those roles.
* And more!
* Solid diagnostic skills.
* Understanding and monitoring for medical issues of relevance.
* Recognizing what can and can't be accomplished during an inpatient stay.
* Basic and not-so-basic psychopharm, especially for mood disorders and the psychotic disorders.
* Understanding how to implement non-pharmacological interventions, including social interventions and bedside psychotherapy.
* Basic addiction medicine skills, from recognizing and treating withdrawal to medication-assisted treatments, and the first steps in addressing addiction via non-pharmacologicical and psychotherapeutic approaches
* I agree with previous posters that interpersonal skills are important and you're going to have to be able to get along with interdisciplinary colleagues, from social workers to nurses. You're the team leader as an inpatient psychiatrist, so you have to know how to balance leadership and collegiality. I think this last bullet point is likely something that applies to A LOT of jobs in psychiatry and is not particularly unique to inpatient. We all need to be good colleagues and leaders when in those roles.
* And more!
