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Nicholas bodily

Ms. Amanda Tibbits

Language Arts 12

8 March 2019

Psychiatry

Do you ever feel like you’ve gone mad? Well, a psychiatrist might be able to help you

with that. I myself want to be a psychiatrist. I’ve always wanted to go into a career that would

allow me to directly help people and would be mentally stimulating for me. I feel that psychiatry

would be a perfect fit. My brother who is in medical school was the one to introduce me to

psychiatry, and he gave me inspiration to follow this path. I hope to someday be doing what he is

doing and help those with mental disorders. The research I’ve done will cover what psychiatry is,

how psychiatrists treat patients, the role of a psychiatrist in the public center, ways psychiatry is

changing, stigma related to psychiatry, dissatisfaction with the career, the future satisfaction of

psychiatrists, the tolls of psychiatry, and personality factors of psychiatrists. Let’s start by

looking at was psychiatry is.

What is Psychiatry? Psychiatry is the branch of medicine focused on the diagnosis,

treatment and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. Psychiatrists can be

vital in helping people live happy and safe lives. Many don’t get treated by psychiatrists though,

because many don’t know very much about them. When people do go to psychiatrists they can

receive many types of treatment.

Psychiatrists work hard to help treat many people with mental, emotional and behavioral

disorders. How exactly do they treat their patients though? There is a wide range of treatments
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that psychiatrists use for their patients. Two of these treatments are psychotherapy and

medication. Psychotherapy is a treatment that involves talking between a psychiatrist and their

patient. “The goal of psychotherapy is to eliminate or control disabling or troubling symptoms so

the patient can function better. Depending on the extent of the problem, treatment may take just a

few sessions over a week or two or may take many sessions over a period of years.” (“What Is

Psychiatry.” Warning Signs of Mental Illness 1) Medication can include antidepressants,

antipsychotics, anxiolytics, hypnotics, mood stabilizers, and stimulants. These different

medications can help with a wide array of disorders through helping fix chemical imbalances in

the brain. Those interested in psychiatry need to become very familiar with these different

treatments to eventually become a practicing physician. It is also important that people that want

to help those with mental disorders know that while psychologists can perform psychotherapy,

only psychiatrists are specially trained to prescribe medication. Psychology can be similar to

psychiatry, but it doesn’t encompass all the same treatments. This is important to remember

when deciding what career you might want to go into.

There are private and public sectors of psychiatry. Boyce, Philip, and Margaret Tobin

write, “The role of the psychiatrist in public sector psychiatry is a challenging and exciting one.”

This tells us that there are different aspects of psychiatry that keep you on your feet and that

make you think. This is vital to many students looking into psychiatry. This is because people

want to have a job that is mentally stimulating and that doesn’t bore them. It is also important

that the quote specifies that the public sector is exciting and challenging, because the public as

well as the private sector needs more psychiatrists.

Psychiatry is a field that is continually changing. New pharmacological and non-

pharmacological treatments are continually being developed and researched. This means that in
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the future there will be many new ways to take care of patients. This is important because people

that want to become psychiatrists need to understand that they will need to learn and change with

the development of different treatments. Learning new treatments will always be part of being a

psychiatrist.

Without learning new treatments, new psychiatrists would not be as effective in their

profession.Their is often a stigma towards mental illness and people that have a mental illness.

According to Andrea Fiorillo, Psychiatrists need to promote an image of psychiatry with patients

at the heart of care and as advocates for each other by fighting stigma. This means that

psychiatrists need to be part of an effort to help people understand mental illness more, and to get

rid of the negative thoughts people have towards those with mental illness. This is important

because people pursuing this profession need to understand that fighting stigma regarding mental

illness is one of their responsibilities. This will help more people to go out and get the help they

need with their mental illness.

While there is general job satisfaction in psychiatry there is some dissatisfaction. “One

basic problem may stem from a lack of clarity in the role of the consultant psychiatrist.” (Boyce,

Philip, and Margaret Tobin 2) This means that psychiatrists often are working directly with

patients, but they also have bureaucratic and administrative that can seem mundane and

unnecessary. People looking into psychiatry need to know that they won’t always be working

directly with patients. They need to deal with bureaucratic and administrative aspects of

psychiatry if they are going to work in the field.

We can see partially analyze how satisfied some psychiatrists are with their job through

knowing how many are considering leaving their field. A study in Houston, Texas conducted a

survey that showed 23% of the surveyed psychiatrists were considering a job change.
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(McKelvey, Robert S., and John A. Webb 3) This is a surprisingly large number. Part of this has

to do with the negative stigma towards psychiatry. Many that participated in the survey felt that

attitudes towards psychiatry were getting more positive. This is important, because this could

lead to higher levels of job satisfaction in psychiatry in the future. This could also lead to more

medical students going into psychiatry in the future. Psychiatry is lacking in man-power as a

field, and needs more people to join the field. So an increasingly positive attitude towards

psychiatry is a welcome development.

Psychiatric education is changing. Though psychiatry isn’t rapidly growing in its number

of practicing physicians it is growing in different ways. According to Sy Saeed, “We live in

information age where knowledge is growing more rapidly than ever. This expansion of

knowledge continues to translate into better, safer, and more effective clinical interventions.”

This quote is explaining that with increasingly more knowledge we are learning new ways to

help people with psychiatry. Something that this directly affects is the education of psychiatric

students. Due to a changing field, educators teach students based on what they believe the future

of psychiatry will look like. This is to make sure students are properly equipped when they

finally graduate and go on to practice psychiatry. This may be appealing to those that are active

learners, or those that want to be part of something new. Learning fresh information can bring

excitement into the lives of psychiatric students.

Taking care of patients with mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders can take a toll

on psychiatrists. According to Appleton, taking care of patients can cause emotional stress, and

cause you to feel responsibility for your patients. Taking care of patients that have such hard

problems in their lives can be depressing for physicians, and can cause them to feel burdened.

Something that is important to remember, is that when patients do see improvements it can be
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extremely gratifying to physicians. This is important because it affects psychiatry placements at

medical school. It is made sure that students stay long enough to see improvements in patients,

so that there isn’t a negative attitude towards psychiatry. This is all important to those that want

to go into psychiatry. Those that want to go into psychiatry need to realize that there will be

emotionally low points, but that there will also be very gratifying moments in their career.

Someone’s personality can play a big role in what career they choose and how well they

perform in that career. Even after students get into medical school, personality affects what

career you choose. A Spanish group found that high sensitivity and low (impulsive) self-control

were statistically significant in predicting a psychiatric career choice, rather than another medical

career. (Farooq, Kitty 3) This means that people that are highly sensitive and lower self-control

often go into psychiatry after medical school. This is something that can be good to keep in mind

for those considering going into psychiatry. Knowing how your personality matches with other

in the field can help you to guess how you’ll fit in the field.

This paper has covered what psychiatry is, how psychiatrists treat patients, the role of a

psychiatrist in the public center, ways psychiatry is changing, stigma related to psychiatry,

dissatisfaction with the career, the future satisfaction of psychiatrists, the tolls of psychiatry, and

personality factors of psychiatrists. Psychiatry is appealing to me because I believe that it would

be an mentally stimulating and fulfilling field. I someday hope to become a psychiatrist, though

it is a long path that is ahead of me. There are many people who struggle with mental illness, and

I know that I can help them.

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Works Cited

Fiorillo, Andrea, et al. “Challenges for Trainees in Psychiatry and Early Career Psychiatrists.”

International Review of Psychiatry, vol. 25, no. 4, Aug. 2013, pp. 431–437. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.3109/09540261.2013.812960.

Boyce, Philip, and Margaret Tobin. “Defining the Role of the Consultant Psychiatrist in a Public

Mental Health Service.” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 32, no. 5,

Oct. 1998, pp. 603–611. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3109/00048679809113110.

McKelvey, Robert S., and John A. Webb. “Career Satisfaction among Psychiatrists in Texas.”

Southern Medical Journal, vol. 88, no. 5, May 1995, p. 524. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1097/00007611-199505000-00003.l

Saeed, Sy. “The Changing World of Psychiatric Education: Challenges and Opportunities.”

Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. 88, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 221–224. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1007/s11126-016-9469-4.

“What Is Psychiatry.” Warning Signs of Mental Illness, www.psychiatry.org/patients-

families/what-is-psychiatry

Bakshi, Neeru. “Dr. Akikur Mohammad.” CareersinPsychology.org,

careersinpsychology.org/interview/dr-akikur-mohammad/.

Appleton, A., et al. “Why Did You Choose Psychiatry? A Qualitative Study of Psychiatry

Trainees Investigating the Impact of Psychiatry Teaching at Medical School on Career

Choice.” BMC Psychiatry, vol. 17, July 2017, pp. 1–9. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s12888-

017-1445-5

Farooq, Kitty, et al. “What Attracts Medical Students towards Psychiatry? A Review of Factors

before and during Medical School.” International Review Of Psychiatry (Abingdon,

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England), vol. 25, no. 4, Aug. 2013, pp. 371–377. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.3109/09540261.2013.823855.