ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT A COURSE OF YOUR CHOICE:

If you want to be in the medical profession and have a keen desire to help patients with mental health problems, then psychiatry offers a challenging and stimulating career. Psychiatry deals with mental, emotional and behavioural disorders.

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A psychiatrist’s job profile essentially involves assessment, diagnosis and treatment of patients through medication, counselling, psychotherapy or electrotherapy. Psychiatrists often work within a team of professionals, including social workers, clinical psychologists and occupational therapists.

Various subspecialties and / or theoretical approaches exist which are related to the field of psychiatry. They include the following:

• Biological psychiatry: This approach aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system.

• Child and adolescent psychiatry: This branch specialises in working with children, teenagers and their families.

• Cross-cultural psychiatry: This branch is concerned with the cultural and ethnic context of mental disorder and psychiatric services.

• Forensic psychiatry: This is the interface between law and psychiatry.

• Geriatric psychiatry: This branch of psychiatry deals with the study, prevention and treatment of mental disorders in old age.

• Military psychiatry: This covers special aspects of psychiatry and mental disorders within the military context.

• Neuropsychiatry: This branch deals with mental disorders attributable to diseases of the nervous system.

• Social psychiatry: This branch of psychiatry focuses on the interpersonal and cultural context of mental disorder and mental well-being.

What do I have to do?

Psychiatry offers the opportunity to work closely in a multi-disciplinary team with a variety of other healthcare professionals. It offers a chance of working in a range of different settings including hospitals, the community, schools, special units, residential homes, prisons, drug de-addiction centres and centres for mentally retarded children.

A psychiatrist first assesses a person’s mental and physical condition. This usually involves interviewing the person and often obtaining information from other sources such as other health and social care professionals, relatives, associates, law enforcement and emergency medical personnel and psychiatric rating scales. A physical examination is usually performed to establish or exclude other illnesses, such as thyroid dysfunction or brain tumours, or identify any signs of self-harm.

Like all other medications, psychiatric medications can have toxic effects in patients and hence often involve ongoing therapeutic drug monitoring. Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is sometimes administered for serious and disabling conditions, especially those unresponsive to medication.

Once in the care of a hospital, people are assessed, monitored and often given medication and care, coming from a multi-disciplinary team including physicians, psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychiatric nurses, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatric social workers, occupational therapists and social workers. If a person receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital is assessed at a risk of harming himself or others, they may be put on constant or intermittent one-to-one supervision, and may be physically restrained or medicated.

Psychiatrists may also go through intensive training to conduct psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and / or cognitive behavioural therapy, but it is their medical training, access to medical laboratories and ability to prescribe medications that differentiates them from other mental health professionals.

What should I study?

After passing your Plus Two with biology, physics and chemistry, you should appear for your MBBS, which is a five-and-a-half year course. On successful completion of your MBBS, you should opt for an MD in psychiatry.

You should be extremely patient and empathetic. You must have an interest in and understanding of human behaviour, ability to listen, emotional stability, a genuine concern and sympathy towards mentally disturbed people, with an objective approach towards their problems.

What next?

You can seek employment in regular hospitals as well as mental hospitals. You can also set up your own private clinic. Job opportunities exist in large-scale industries, in drug de-addiction centres, rehabilitation centres dealing with mental problems and teaching faculties in medical colleges. You can also apply for specialised courses overseas where this
profession is in great demand. Psychiatry as a profession is gaining a lot of importance with increasing mental tension and stress associated with modern urban life. The general attitude towards psychiatry and psychotherapy has also changed and prejudices are gradually vanishing.

Apart from these, psychiatrists also often work as counsellors in institutions, including schools, colleges, hospitals and health centres. Many private nursing homes and polyclinics employ psychiatrists to attend to the psychological problems arising from various medical, surgical, cardiac and gynaecological cases. Psychiatrists specialising in children’s problems
deal with juvenile delinquents and work in childrens’ rehabilitation centres. Psychiatrists are often required to work in courts and prisons where they have to deal with people’s marital problems and other family matters.

Where to study

Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi.
The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore.
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.
Nilratan Sircar Medical College, Calcutta.
University College of Medicine, Calcutta.
Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune.

Written by :Dr. Amrita Dass, Director, Institute for Career Studies, Lucknow