A psychiatrist is a doctor, specialized in psychiatry. A psychiatrist is a certified medical professional known for treating mental disorders. These doctors are qualified for diagnosing mental problems and providing effective psychotherapy. Psychiatrists are the only medical professionals, who can recommend proper psychiatric medication, carry out a physical examination, and conduct a laboratory test. There are also various tests conducted for examining the brain like magnetic resonance imagining, computed tomography and positron emission tomography scanning.
The psychiatrists are of two types:
- Physicians: they are specialized in curing the mental disorder.
- Scientists: they are the qualified medical professionals in the field of psychiatry.
The psychiatric doctors specialize in different age groups of their choice. There are adolescent and child psychiatrists and gero or geriatric psychiatrists for elderly. There are psychiatrists working in the courtroom for reporting the judge, in civil or criminal court case, they are known as forensic psychiatrists. They specialize in treating the wrongdoer, who suffers from a mental problem.
To become a psychiatrist different countries have different requirements. In countries like US and Canada, in order to become a psychiatrist one must have a Bachelor’s Degree. You must also attend a medical course for four years, to complete your medical education. After this, you are expected to practice for at least another four years as a psychiatric resident.
Here are a few steps that will give you all the required information on how to become a psychiatrist.
Steps:
- To get into a medical program after high school, make sure you take up some science course. You should also include subjects like chemistry, biology and physics in high school.
- Decide on which medical schools do you want to go in, go through the website of that college. If you have a difficulty in choosing the best college, then visit aamc.org/medicalschools.html. This website has a list of some of the top medical colleges in US and Canada. After selecting the college of your choice, call up the college and ask their requirements for premedical school.
- Also, read the reviews of the colleges that you wish to join. Once you have all the required information, you can apply for the college catalogues and application forms.
- To get in a medical school, you should have good grades in high school. Work harder on your science subjects the competition in medical schools is tough.
- You should take the Medical Admission Test after you finish with you junior year. You can also take some help from your counselor for handling the paperwork.
- You will have to complete your four years of medical school. Then you can apply for the medical boards, and after that you will have a degree in Medical Doctor (M.D.)
- To start with, you can go for a being a residency in psychiatry for four years. It is like training, you will also be getting salary for the same. You can also give the exam for medical license during the training process.
- Continue your practice until the time you get a certificate from the authorized board. Later on, you can also specialize in forensic psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry or child psychiatry.
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Thought provoking. Very thought provoking. Thanks.
You are a very smart person!
I kind of disagree, but I do see your point.
A new psychological phenomenon has emerged. Cases are seen in the case of psychogenic autism (factitious disorders) where the persons either deliberately feign being autistic or they really believe they are autistic. Normally, you find this in people who have taken large amounts of LSD type drugs, combined with a severly abusive past, thus resulting in a very mixed presentation of whatever it is they feel will bring them the most attention and nurturing. Autism is popular today, so many mentally ill persons are adopting this persona. Mainly, because few, if any professionals or media will challenge such a diagnosis after even a less than competant professional duped by the complexity of the presentation—validates it. Ooops, than it becomes a save face issue, where neither the media or the professionals (not to forget publishers who publish stories that later turn out not to be autistic people) involved in the faulty diagnosis want to be embarrassed. This is unfortunate, as this does a great disservice to the autism community in general. Recall the Amanda Baggs controversy and the case of Ms. Donna Williams. You Tube has a recent video out discussing some of this I’ve mentioned. It is on you tube under the name, “autism spectrum seems out of control” and another video named, “autism epidemic out of control.” The video has most definately hit on something few outside psychoanalytical or psychiatric circles, have even noticed.
Valuable info. Even I bookmarked it.Thank you.