Two questions about Psychiatry

1. How well respected is Psychiatry as a field now? Within the medical community, has the stigma of being dodgy-psychology-pseudo-science gone now?

2. Is it easy to get into Psychiatry from a Medical background in the UK? My tutor said that in the UK they tend to come from Psychology backgrounds and that it's quite difficult for Medics to specialise in it, but I'm not sure how true this is...

Thanks :smile:

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Reply 1

Pedrobear

Original post by Calumcalum

WTF?

1. It doesn't have that stigma at all.

2. Your tutor is, um... wrong.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of psychoanalysis?

Reply 2

thisismycatch22

Original post by Calumcalum

1. It's a recruiting field, but it's more respected intellectually than it used to be since psychologists in general try to get more of an evidence base for their treatments than they used to.

2. That's completely wrong. No one from a psychology background can be a psychiatrist unless they also have a medical degree. It's very easy for medics to specialise in it since as I said it's a recruiting specialty not a selecting one, which is where any residual disrespect in medical circles might stem from...

Reply 3

John Locke

Original post by Calumcalum

2 is truly appalling advice, psychiatry is a medical specialty and nobody doing psychology can become a psychiatrist without a medical degree. Clinical psychology is a different thing which they might be getting confused by..?

Good info;
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/specialtytraining/careersinpsychiatry/careersinfoforugs.aspx

Reply 4

Scipio

To answer question 1...

There's still a lot of negativity towards them. Like someone said, it partially stems from the fact that it's quite easy to get into so people tend to think it's for slackers.

edit: You're a 2nd year medic and your tutor didn't know how psychiatry works?

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 5

Calumcalum

Should probably note here that I have quite severe attention difficulties and so probably didn't pay proper attention to what he said - he's a Consultant Neurologist and MRCP so I would imagine it's probably me that got it wrong :P

Reply 6

digitalis

*shakes head*

How a second year medical student doesn't know the answers to these questions is astounding.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 7

thisismycatch22

Original post by n1r4v

2. Need medical degree, and apparently is not as competitive as other specialties.

It doesn't seem like it's competitive, full stop.
http://www.im-grp.co.uk/news/psychiatry-faces-training-crisis
Only 1.2 applicants per place, and for many of those it will not be their first choice... and for some areas there aren't enough applicants to fill all the training places.

Reply 8

belis

It is definitely looked down upon by many but in the end of the day does it matter? You do not often deal with doctors from other specialties as a psychiatrist and if you do (liaison psychiatry) they will usually be most grateful when you come and sort their 'crazy' patient out.

I worry more about anti psychiatry movement within mental health itself and all the nurses, social workers and other members of the MDT who disregard psychiatric approach and are often full of hostility. You need to work around that on daily basis in particular within community based teams.

Reply 9

Renal

Original post by thisismycatch22

They've been undersubscribed for the last few years now.

Reply 10

Calumcalum

Original post by digitalis

*shakes head*

How a second year medical student doesn't know the answers to these questions is astounding.

Sorry for having a largely non-clinical first three years...? :s-smilie:

Reply 11

digitalis

Original post by Calumcalum

Sorry for having a largely non-clinical first three years...? :s-smilie:

I know you don't have any experience of clinical stuff but to really have to ask the question whether psychiatry has a pseudo-science stigma attached to it in the medical community...I mean don't you have lectures on this stuff? Or hear about older year's experiences of psychiatry through the grapevine..?

This time, I'm not actually having a go...I'm genuinely baffled as to how you have to have some reassurance as to the above.

Reply 12

Huw Davies

Original post by digitalis

To be fair, at Oxford the preclinical\clinical split is very pronounced and I barely met any of the clinical medics in my first 3 years. There was "Psychology for Medicine" sprinkled into the second year, a bit of a hodge-podge from which I can only recall some development stuff, and the sick role. Definitely nothing about psychiatric management or indeed how medical career progression works! So I don't think it's ridiculous for the OP not to know this stuff (but I probably would have consulted the University Of Google in the first instance).

Reply 13

Calumcalum

Original post by digitalis

Not really, I'm afraid :tongue:

We've had pretty much nothing on how medical careers actually work or clinical practice (other than learning clinical relevance to the science, but that's more symptoms of meningitis or whatever than how to get into a specialty, etc). As poster above says, the pre-clinical/clinical division is very pronounced and unless someone has had some sort of background in healthcare or work experience or parents as doctors, they're not really expected to know anything about it yet :redface:

Reply 14

mr.mocha

Q1 - I think the 'stigma' is somewhat still there but has decreased. If you are passionate about psychiatry and know what it entails and have strong reasons for pursuing it then why not?

It is important to know it is very much a grey area of medicine which probably accounts for most of the hostility against it.

(I remember a BMJ article that discussed psychiatry as a career fairly recently so if youre really intersted thats worth a look)

Q2 - Psychiatry is a medical specialty i.e. a field in medicine, so you have to have a medical doctors degree and then go through the necessary training.

Does your tutor mean people who do psychology degrees then medicine are more favoured for psychiatry training, maybe?

Reply 15

John Locke

Original post by digitalis

a significant amount of preclinical students here appear to have no idea about career paths, organisational aspects of healthcare in general (!), how the clinical course even works (!!) and why we learn the preclinical science we do (!!!!!) from my experience.

Not that i am saying it's necessarily a negative thing, but it does seem quite surprising sometimes.

EDIT: thinking about it there can be a number of reasons;

the specialty societies (GP soc, surgery soc etc) are really clinical school generated and attended and as it is quite removed from us (also on a social level this is college dependent) it becomes not really a preclin thing. i imagine that stuff like that is useful for careers information early on for your joe bloggs medical student at other medical schools so, so they are probably more aware about stuff like that.

clinical aspects are very well focused on preclinically but it is theoretical aspects (why X causes Y, why that is useful etc) not practical stuff like career structures, members of the MDT etc etc,. with stuff like that being left for the start of the clinical school

and i'm sure there are many more tbh. obviously the information is all there if you seek it out but its not all laid upon you until you really need to start thinking about it is the theme i think.

EDIT2: not that i really think anyone is interested in my opinion :p:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 16

Hype en Ecosse

This is on a complete tangent to the thread.

I understand the main difference between a Psychiatrist and a Psychologist is that a Psychiatrist has a medical degree, and can prescribe medicine, whereas a psychologist has a Psychology degree and cannot prescribe.

But my question is, how does the work of these two professions differ?

Reply 17

digitalis

Original post by mckinnon94

"The place for medical students to discuss all things about the course from work load to applying for jobs and everything else. Not the place for applicants to ask current medical students questions!"

Go and google your question, that would be a great start.

Reply 18

No Future

Original post by Calumcalum

1. How well respected is Psychiatry as a field now? Within the medical community, has the stigma of being dodgy-psychology-pseudo-science gone now?
I think most medics do look down on psychiatry a bit and it's a less popular specialty. I think this is to do with misconceptions about mental health etc Plus, some members of the public don't even realise psychiatrists are Drs. There was an article in the Student BMJ about psychiatry as a career recently

2. Is it easy to get into Psychiatry from a Medical background in the UK? My tutor said that in the UK they tend to come from Psychology backgrounds and that it's quite difficult for Medics to specialise in it, but I'm not sure how true this is...
The only way to become a psychiatrist is to have a medical degree. Psychiatry is a medical specialty. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has an informative website

Thanks :smile:

above

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 19

No Future