Psychiatrists are medical doctors who go to medical school, then have a year as a resident rotating on internal medicine or pediatrics, neurology, and, finally, psychiatry.
They train an additional 3 years to do adult psychiatry or 4 years to do Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (total of 4 or 5 years after medical school).
As medical doctors, they are expected to diagnose mental illness if present but also non-psychiatric causes of mental health symptoms.
For example, an anxious patient may have hyperthyroidism as the cause (the anxiety disappears when the thyroid disease is treated). Another example would be a patient who is depressed due to a medication side effect. The psychiatrist would work with the prescribing physician to change to a different medication.
To illustrate what psychiatrists do, I have helped develop a podcast about psychiatrists (the word means doctor of the mind). It is meant to be entertaining as well as educational. There are 8 episodes.
If you are interested, it can be accessed on Apple podcasts. Just type The Mind Doctor in the search bar. You can leave a review at the end. This is helpful so we know whether this format works the way we intended.
Peter M. Hartmann, MD
Family Medicine & Psychiatry
