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Rural Psychiatry


coffeeplz

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It looks like you're still early in your career. I wouldn't worry too much about what you're going to do until you've actually done some clinical rotations.

 

As an example, most places have a dearth of psychiatrists so all they do is initial diagnosis and medication management

and then punt back to the GPs for ongoing support i.e. that patient experience stuff. So you will get more of that in family medicine than in psychiatry.

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I mean, there are definitely psychiatrists practicing in smaller areas - but you need to be somewhere with a large enough population that you have a referral base.  An entire small town (hopefully) isn't going to need a psychiatrist.  If you want to operate on a consultant model, this is particularly the case. because you will need a stream of new referrals.  Easier if you want to be limited to or mostly practice psychotherapy, because you can support yourself with a smaller practice and fewer referrals if you do that, because you'll have a smaller number of patients longer term.  Income will be somewhat less, though, because you won't be billing consultation codes or likely much in the way of acuity codes.

 

I am somewhat confused by your rationale though.  Psychiatrists ALSO focus on the diagnosis and management of illness - it's just a different set of illnesses.  Many family doctors practice in a holistic way that takes into account and explores the illness experience to some extent.

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