What area are you interested in?

[Guest Lactic Folly]

I may well enjoy a psycology practice that teaches people to rationally and purposefully solve their own problems, only resorting to prescription drugs when there is an underlying physiological need (as it is true, there often is).

Sounds like cognitive behavioral therapy, among other things.. often a clinical psychologist will do this, but I know of psychiatrists who specialize in psychotherapy as wel.

[Guest Lurkergonepublic]

I believe you mean psychiatry and not psychology since psychiatry is a medical specialty and psychology is not.

 

Bam.

 

And there's a great example of how much I don't know about it yet. I knew one was med and one wasn't, but I never bothered to worry about which was which - something I doubt most of the general public knows either. Maybe that's why everyone says psyc, so they don't have to remember...

 

Much like the general public doesn't always appreciate the different meanings of the title doctor. BTW, best scrubs quote ever last night: Cox to Elliot- "Are you really a doctor, or are you a doctor like Dr. Pepper is a doctor?"

:rollin

 

Thanks for the impressions, they sound a little like what I might expect to feel about it - just have to wait and see, and hope I have the chance to find out.

[Guest quebecboy]

This makes me think of a patient we had in psychiatry. She told us:

 

The difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist is that with one, you don't pay and get pills, and with the other, you take out the money and get no pills!

 

Quebecboy

 

Edit: This is not my point of view of psychiatry or psychology, and I do know that there's much more to psychiatry than medication. I just thought it was a pretty funny way of seeing things from a patients prospective (not just I, but also the psychiatrist and the rest of my tutorial group). Kosmo, you need to lighten up a bit... : "Pretty narrow view of psychiatry" :rolleyes

[Guest kosmo14]

Pretty narrow view of psychiatry. There are many aspects to psychiatry that certainly don't involve medication. As was said above there is psychotherapy and Cognitive behavioural therapy which psychiatrists frequently do. The ability to prescribe medications is an adjunct to the other available therapies used within psychiatry. A psychiatrist can even perform electro convulsive therapy, which I have seen quite useful on my rotations within psychiatry.

 

As far as fuzzy diagnosis criteria the DSM IV is used in psychiatry to make diagnosis. It is quite involved and very specific. I think what people meant is that there are very subtle differences between various diagnosises (is that the pleural, man medicine has killed my ability to spell). For example the diff. between schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenoform disorder is essentially time and the presence/abscence of mood symptoms.

 

I have seen many "tough" cases come through the door of the ER, and be admitted only to leave the hospital a week later fully functioning, so the inability to cure is a fallicy.

 

Although I didn't choose to do my residency in psych. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was one of the most interesting specialties out there. It is quite unfortunate that there is so many myths out there about it, even among med students.

[Guest leviathan]

That's something that aggravates me a bit, because there's no definite way as a pre-med that you can understand what clinical practice of a specialty is like, just by knowing a bit about the physiology behind the speciality. I may be interested in cardiovascular physiology, but that doesn't mean I'd be interested in becoming a cardiologist or know very much about what a day in their life is like.

[Guest kosmo14]

Quebecboy, wasn't a criticism of you, I was just stating that it is a narrow view of psych, one that is held by many including med students.

[Guest drews97]

Meh, it's fun to say what you'd like to do before (or during preclinical years) but he reality is that a lot of people change their minds. It's very tough to adequately evaluate the lifestyle and scope of a specialty before you experience it. For example, I was interested in ortho but I just spent 6 weeks of electives in it and man, only a crazy person would want to work so many hours. It's cool, but so is life.

 

Anyway, my advise is to have fun, keep an open mind and you'll figure it out. Hardly anyone goes into medicine saying they want to be pathologists or endocrinologists or allergists yet people end up in those fields each year. Good luck.

[Guest DancingDoc]

Leviathan (or any med student),

By when in medical school do figure out which specialty is for you? Because to my knowledge, 1st and 2nd year there isn't a whole lot of exposure to the various specialties beyond their physiology unless you make time to do observerships (to my understanding at least, I know you at least get to learn basic exam stuff). So how do people pick the right electives (since you normally need at least a couple in the specialty you apply to in CARMs to be successful) if first and second year don't give enough exposure. You're definitely right that most of what we are listing here is to past the time with our current dream of how we see ourselves as a future doctor (doesn't make any less fun though!). Anyhow, I hope I get enough experience in the first year to make sure I choose my electives and then hresidency wisely.

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

You guys should write down what you want to go into at this point in time (ie: before you start med school or clerkship, since that is when you start to get a real good idea of what you want to do) and see if and/or how that evolves with the more experience you gain as you make the journey through medical school. You'll be amazed, I promise you, at how much you opinion can change (or be changed) with what you experience.

Personally, I always think that it's funny when someone comes into med school vehemently insisting that they are going to be the #1 rural pediatric hepatologist in Canada only to find that they like something completely different once they get that 'real world' exposure! :lol

 

Best of luck!

Timmy