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Saturday, July 7, 2012

Psychiatry's identity crisis - Original letter

The Lancet, Volume 379, Issue 9823, Page 1274, 7 April 2012

Last week, the American Psychiatric Association issued a press release highlighting an ongoing decline in the recruitment of medical students into the specialty—at a time when the numbers of practising psychiatric professionals in the USA is falling. Various reasons are proposed, including the short-term nature of placements (usually just 4 weeks); the sheer breadth of an evolving specialty, which is drawing students towards newer areas such as clinical neuroscience; and concerns that psychiatry is not as lucrative as other specialties.

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Psychiatrists, first and foremost, are clinicians. Evidence-based approaches should be at the core of the psychiatrist and non-clinical members of any mental health team.

The entire piece is here.