Psychiatry Essay, Research Paper

Psychiatry

Imagine being able to know what makes people tick! Imagine being able to understand why people act the way they do. Imagine being in University thirteen years MORE after High School.

Definition of a psychiatry – The branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental and emotional disorders.

Definition of a psychiatrist – A physician who specializes in psychiatry.

Becoming a psychiatrist is no easy task that s for sure, but once completed it gives great satisfaction.

Required Schooling – Well it is important to do well in school regardless of final destination. But to go to Medical School you need to keep your marks at minimum north of 70% in the courses that are required and useful in Medical school suck as *Biology*, Physics, **Chemistry**, Math. And you need to take them all at the advanced grade level. In Canada to get into Medical school you need to have at least half a Batchelor s degree before applying and for McMaster Medical School you need a Full Batchelor s degree. The degree can be in any subject but a science degree would increase your chances. It takes four years to get a Batchelor s Degree in Science. If you are accepted into Medical school you then you go through 4 years of Lectures, Tutorials, and in hospital work, towards the end it is more clinical work. Through all this you would be writing tests on a regular basis. In the end, if you re still standing you have to right the National Medical Exam or the L.M.C.C. Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada

Which is a gruelling test spanning 2 days for 6-8 hours a day. If you pass you are now able to specialize in a medical field; you are also a Doctor. You would have already chosen your specialty, and then you would enter Residency.

Residency- A residency is when you are working and being paid to work as a doctor. You are working towards becoming a psychiatrist. This residency will take five years and you will be earning Thirty Thousand for your first year and by the time you have reached your fifth year you will be making fifty thousand dollars a year. During this time it would be impossible for you to have a part time job and so the big loans come in. Any part time you have is expected you will spend in the hospital working. During your residency once or twice a week for one whole day you will enter a classroom for lectures, tutorials, seminars, exams/tests. At the end of your residency you will take a two-part specialty exam the first part is written on all the things you ve learned in the past five years. The second part is an in hospital exam. Where you meet, diagnose and treat a patient. You can write this exam up to four times if you fail, but if you fail the forth it s over. But if you pass, you are now a Psychiatrist.

The First Rocky year- According to a psychiatrist I contacted he said the hardest part of the first year is the fast that people s lives are dependent on your decisions. This is a hard concept to grasp. But this psychiatrist had no regrets now. And the beginning of paying off your HUGE debt, the average debt is 100,000 to 150,000 dollars to be paid back is also a huge task to overcome.

Annual Income & Payment Plans- Each psychiatrist has the choice of two payment plans they are 1.) Salary – this is when you are paid for a forty-hour week and that s all, but you get a pention plan, medical and others things. 2.) Billing the Government- this is when you the psychiatrist bill the Government for the patients you ve seen, so if you work sixty hours you get paid for sixty hours. But there is no pention plan and no other benefits.

The second way of being paid you earn more money but you do not get the same benefits. The regular psychiatrist earns between One Hundred and Twenty thousand to two hundred thousand dollars, so it is a very well paying job. But taxes take 50% of that and then another 10% goes to different organizations you must pay to stay in practice.

Benefits- The single greatest benefit is the benefit of knowing that you saved a life that you have aided another person in their troubles. This is the reason I want to get into psychiatry. I don t think I could live with a job where I was in front of a screen, I need to be with people.

True or False? — 1.)Do Psychiatrist s in Canada actually have those little couches?

2.)Are they rich?

3.)Are there office walls really covered in books?

4.)Do they analyze every thing you do?

5.)Do they analyze everyone they meet?

Answers: 1. No of coarse not that s America. 2.) They are well paid but not rich they work really hard and deserve everything they get. 3.)No again that s American, and from the movies at that. 4.) No there normal people 5.) See # 4

A day in the life of a psychiatrist – A 24yr. old male who s schizophrenic and attempted suicide because the voices told him to, is brought into the hospital at 8:30am.

If you the psychiatrist is on call it is your job to go in right away. But if you are not on call your next day may go a little like this.

You would arrive at 9:00am and see the patient immediately in the emergency department. You would begin to question the patient on why he did it, and about his symptoms. You would then diagnose him based on the information he gave you, in this case the diagnosis would be high suicide risk. You would then admit him as an in-patient to the hospital on a One-to-One basis with a nurse. Meaning our patient can t be alone. And Medication is started Anti-Depressant, Tranquilizer, Anti- .You then check up on him daily. By the third day he will be much better the voices would be almost gone and he is not suicidal. In one week there would be no voices and he would be discharged from the hospital. He would them be seen in the out-patient department one week later, and his medication would be reduced. You discuss any problems he might have. Then he begins to come in weekly for a month then monthly for a little over a year. The most common mental illness to some across in the field of psychiatry is depression and it would be handled in much of the same way, pending of coarse if under the same consequences.

Degrees and Honours –

B.A. – Bachelor in arts – any degree in university before masters degree.

M.D. – Medical Doctor – when you become a doctor.

F.R.C.P.C. – Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada – When you become a Doctor this allows you to practice in Canada.

D.A.B.P.N. – Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology – Allows you to practice in America.

M.R.C.P. – Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Psychiatrists – allows you to practice in any country in Europe.

F.A.C.P. – This is an Honour not a degree – Fellow of the American College of Surgeons – For excellence in the Medical field of Psychiatry.