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General Description

This is an ideal career for analytical and logical thinkers. Psychiatrists focus on mental health, assessing and treating mental illnesses through a combination of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, hospitalization and medication. Psychotherapy involves regular discussions with patients about their problems; you help them find solutions through changes in their behavioural patterns, the exploration of their past experiences, and group and family therapy sessions. Psychoanalysis involves long-term psychotherapy and counselling for patients.

Career Advice - Psychiatrist Career

In modern society, with the pace of life faster, competition for progression more intense and life in general more complex and with more pressure, it is little wonder there has been an explosion of mental disorders, and a surge in demand for psychiatric treatments.   As a psychiatrist you focus holistically on the patient’s body and mind.

Some of the better known mental illnesses you will treat include anxiety disorders, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and substance abuse as well as personality disorders such as attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). Unlike a surgeon whose work can have immediate effects, you work with patients over a lengthy period of time, using a combination of psychotherapy and medications. Psychiatric illness can have a devastating effect on the lives of patients and their families, and may even be life threatening. Your work covers the spectrum of age groups and no two patients are the same.

Of all the specialisations a physician can adopt, psychiatry is perhaps the most ‘up close and personal’. Patients reveal their innermost thoughts and feelings, share confidential and sensitive information including their fears and anxieties, and input into a relationship that is built over time, one based on trust and understanding without judgement.  Your capacity to listen, persuade, influence and communicate is often taken to the limit.

What you do every day.

There are days for hospital rounds and days for patient consultation. They all start early and finish late. Irrespective, your career commences as a resident working in the major hospitals. Residency is tough, hard work with long days commencing at 6.30am in the operating room and finishing once the surgeons’ patient list is completed.

Your day usually ends around 6pm but once every four nights you may finish at 8am, a 26 hour shift. Patients trust you and you need to be there for them. Medical training is exhausting, and rewarding both financially and in terms of personal satisfaction. Many physicians and surgeons work long, irregular hours; almost one-third of physicians work 60 or more hours a week.

Personality that best fits this occupation

You must have a desire to serve patients, compassion towards others, be self-motivated, and be able to survive the pressures and long hours of medical education and practice. You also must have a good bedside manner, excellent communication skills, emotional stability and the self confidence to make decisions in emergencies.

Ongoing study throughout your career is necessary to keep up with medical advances so you must have a high degree of motivation and self discipline. Employment opportunities will continue to expand due to a growing and ageing population which will inevitably increase demand for physician services.

Best thing about this career

You can make a huge difference to your patients' lives and to the communities you serve. You are challenged every day as people are different and medical technology constantly changes. The financial rewards can be substantial, so you can afford an affluent lifestyle, but in the end the status, respect and trust afforded to you is the greatest reward.

Worst thing about this career

The downsides of a medical career are: the long time it takes to finally become qualified, knowing that despite what you do people will die anyway, the long hours, and the difficulty in maintaining a work-life balance. There is a growing culture of litigation across the medical industry which has made medical indemnity a topical issue in some specialisations.