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Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a psychiatrist. Feel free to use our psychiatrist job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a psychiatrist.

 

Who is a Psychiatrist?

A psychiatrist is a doctor who specializes in mental health disorders, particularly substance misuse. Psychiatrists are skilled in assessing both the mental and physical aspects of mental diseases.

People seek the services of a psychiatrist for a variety of reasons, including panic attacks, horrific hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, and “hearing weird voices,” among others. These issues could sometimes be more long-term, such as persistent feelings of despair, hopelessness, worry, or the inability to function normally in daily life that makes the individual feel in less control of his or her own life.

Psychiatrists can order or conduct a variety of medical lab and psychological tests, which, when combined with patient interviews, can help to construct a picture of a patient’s physical and mental state. Their education and clinical training prepare them to understand the complex relationship between emotional and other medical illnesses, as well as the links to genetics and family history, to evaluate medical and psychological data in other make a diagnosis and collaborate with patients on the necessary treatment plans to be adopted.

In their professional activity, psychiatrists use a number of therapeutic approaches, including psychotherapy, drugs, psychological interventions, and other treatments, depending on the needs of each patient.

A psychiatrist is most often confused with a psychologist; nevertheless, there is a significant distinction between the two professions, which are as follows: A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who has obtained his or her medical school qualifications as well as residency and other additional psychiatric training. A psychiatrist can as well utilize psychotherapy as well as administer medication and other medical therapies to meet his or her patient needs.

However, a psychologist, on the other hand, typically holds a doctorate in psychology, most commonly in clinical psychology, and has received considerable training in research or clinical practice. Psychologists also use psychotherapy to treat mental illnesses, and some specialize in psychological testing and evaluation in their professional practice.

Psychiatrist Job Description

Below are the psychiatrist job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a psychiatrist job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.

As a psychiatrist, your job is in assessing both the mental and physical aspects of mental diseases of your patients. Your training will instill skills for this work, such as a great understanding of psychotherapy as well as the administration of medication and other medical therapies to serve your patients. You also perform the following duties as a psychiatrist:

• Leads a variety of group therapy sessions and counsels individuals and groups on issues such as stress, substance misuse, and family circumstances in order to change behavior.
• Provides clinical leadership in interacting, planning, and collaborating with a multidisciplinary team that includes Psychiatric Nurses, Support Workers, Clinical Psychologists, Art therapists, Occupational therapists, and others to provide comprehensive, high-quality care.
• Creates collaborations with other institutions in rendering mental health awareness events such as media events, seminars for organizations, schools, and so forth.
• Collaborates with the Clinical Director to plan and oversee weekly continuing education clinical meetings and training for facility employees.
• Assists in the development of mental health services.
• Assists clients in developing skills or techniques for dealing with their issues.
• Refers patients, clients, or family members to community resources or specialists when the need arises.
• Assists clients in coordinating needed resources or resolving emergency issues in crisis situations.
• Assist the team (medical team) in developing or implementing programs to prevent substance misuse, promote community health as well as provision of counseling.
• Keeps oversight of his or her patients admitted to the clinic as a consultant.
• Develops a treatment plan for patients with psychological, emotional, or behavioral issues.
• Provides treatment to individuals and groups.
• Creates and carries out specific treatment plans for various age groups (children inclusive).
• Assists the medical team in identifying novel techniques and long-term operations to improve mental health services for refugees and host communities.
• Supports mental health services with a multidisciplinary team that includes doctors, clinical psychologists, nurses, and social workers.
• Assesses patients prior to admission, in matters such as in-patient care, discharge planning, and aftercare.
• Creates an accurate summary of the patient’s needs, strengths, and a detailed tailored risk assessment to help with their care planning.
• Works with the Clinical Director to assume overall clinical responsibility for the facility’s patients’ care as well as contact with their families.
• Leads and supervises the clinical staff in providing pick-up service in the community (assisting families in collecting patients from their homes for admission to the facility) as needed.
• Maintains efficient communication with patients, relatives, and other stakeholders through regular interaction.
• Holds family sessions as needed and in accordance with the patients’ treatment plans.
• Refers a patient for psychological testing to determine a diagnosis and severity
• Recommends and designs a treatment plan for his or her patients.
• Talks to patients about their problems in an attempt to resolve them (psychotherapy or talk therapy)
• Explores patients’ past experiences to learn how they affect their current state of mind and behavior (psychoanalysis)
• Assists patients in changing their ways of thinking and acting (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT).
• Contributes to other departments in the organization in which he operates including the organization’s business development, administration, and management.
• Performs any other additional duties as ordered by the Clinical Director or Medical Director.

 

Qualifications

Like all other professions, the role of a psychiatrist requires some forms of training and certifications to be qualified to practice and they are as follows:

• Medical and surgical bachelor’s degrees.
• Work experience ranging from 4 to 7 years.
• Post-graduate qualifications, such as master’s degrees, are preferred.
• Non-clinical experience that demonstrates exposure to other industries is preferred.
• Relevant mental health experience is preferred.

 

Essential Skills

Psychiatry is skilled disciplined and as such requires some essential skills necessary to thrive on the job. These essential skills are explained in detail below:

1. Interpersonal Skills: A psychiatrist must be able to build a connection with patients and earn their trust. Interpersonal skills include the ability to maintain emotional stability in the face of human suffering, emergencies, and other challenges.
2. Communication Skills: They must have great speaking and listening skills in order to properly express medical facts, test findings, diagnoses, and/or prescribed therapy to clients and their families.
3. Monitoring: They must assess their patients’ responses to treatment and make necessary adjustments.
4. Honesty: Psychiatrists, like other doctors, must keep all contact with their patients secret.
5. The ability to monitor, evaluate, and document symptoms, reactions, and progress.
6. A working understanding of crisis intervention approaches.
7. Ability to communicate medical facts, test results, diagnoses, and/or prescribed therapy to clients in a clear and understandable manner.
8. Psychological as well as developmental assessment abilities
9. Psychological test administration, scoring, and interpretation expertise.
10. As a psychiatrist, you should be able to assess the benefits of various treatments and determine the best course of action for your patients.
11. As a psychiatrist, you must possess the knowledge and abilities required to offer care and treatment tailored to the requirements of the patients treated.
12. Possession of a thorough understanding of medicine, psychology, psychopharmacology, and supportive family and group therapy is a crucial skill.
13. A thorough understanding of the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
14. Expertise in the creation, implementation, and documentation of tailored treatment and care plans.
15. Ability to assess patient population-specific needs and develop an appropriate treatment plan in collaboration with other professions.
16. Ability to form and maintain good working relationships with superiors, coworkers, and subordinates; deal effectively with the public; and communicate well both orally and in writing.
17. Physical capacity to conduct TIPS and CPR on a limited contract basis.

 

Steps to Becoming a Psychiatrist

After completing a bachelor’s degree, psychiatrists enroll in medical school. They do a psychiatry residency in a hospital after finishing medical school. The list of the rest of the steps are explained as follows:

• College: As a pre-medical student of psychiatry you should choose a major that allows you to take courses in biology, general and organic chemistry, arithmetic, English, and statistics.
• Medical School: All aspiring physicians must attend four years in a medical school accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) or the American Osteopathic Association Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA) or other accredited medical school in your country. After acquiring a bachelor’s degree, a very high-grade point average (GPA) in college, a solid result on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), a strong leadership and communication abilities are all required for admission. In addition to that applicants to medical school must also submit a personal statement.
• Residency: After graduating from medical school, as an aspiring psychiatrist you must complete a residency that is approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for at least four years (ACGME). Psychiatric residents care for patients with a range of disorders during their first year, then study how to identify and treat people with mental problems over the course of their three-year residency. After graduation, one can choose to specialize in addiction, child and adolescent psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, military psychiatry, or community and public health psychiatry.
• Board Certification: After completing a psychiatric residency, one can apply to the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for board certification (ABPN). This is for those in the US, for other countries you can verify for the ones obtainable in your own area.
• Medical license: To practice medicine, all doctors, including psychiatrists, must get a license from the state.

 

Where Do Psychiatrists Work?

Private practices, clinics, general and mental hospitals, university medical centers, community organizations, courts and prisons, nursing homes, industry, government, military settings, rehabilitation programs, emergency departments, hospice programs, and many more places employ psychiatrists.

 

Salary Scale of Psychiatrists

In the United States, psychiatrists’ salaries vary depending on their expertise and location. They make at least $216,090 a year on average. Based on 7 salaries, an entry-level Psychiatrist with less than 1 year of experience can expect to earn an average total compensation of £40,634 in the United Kingdom. Based on 34 salaries, an early career Psychiatrist with 1-4 years of experience gets an average total salary of £49,604. Based on 23 salaries, a mid-career Psychiatrist with 5-9 years of experience gets an average total salary of £71,125. Based on 35 salaries, an experienced Psychiatrist with 10-19 years of experience gets an average total pay of £81,842. Employees with a long career (20 years or more) earn an average total remuneration of £100,739 per year.

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