Message from Professor
Sue Bailey, President
 Doctors who choose to
specialise in psychiatry have the best and most diverse of career
opportunities. No two clinical days are the same.
For over 30
years I have been privileged to work as a psychiatrist. A unique
blend of science and humanity, psychiatry is the part of medicine
where you can work in real partnership with patients, their carers,
and their families.
- Liaison
psychiatrists can speed up recovery of patients with physical
illness.
- Neuropsychiatrists deal with complex behavioural
problems arising out of seizure disorders and degenerative
conditions, and work at the cutting edge of understanding the
mind-brain dualism.
- Evidence-based
treatments in psychiatry have a level of effectiveness equivalent
to all medicine, in managing both acute illness and long-term
conditions.
- New science is
helping us understand at the cellular level the origins of
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
- With strong
international clinical and research links, there are great
opportunities for young doctors to make a real difference following
natural and man-made disasters across the world.
- Through work
with children we can prevent many late-onset mental illnesses and
support their families.
- And where they
have genetic vulnerability or have experienced the impact of
abusive life events we can, working with skilled and enthusiastic
multidisciplinary teams, ameliorate the negative impact of nature
and nurture. By meeting their needs we can, over time, reduce
the risk presented by young people and help them to return to the
community and lead prosocial lives.
There can be no
public health without mental health. Being a psychiatrist you have
a real opportunity to lead clinical teams, and support a range of
other professionals across social care, education and
justice. As a child forensic psychiatrist I work closely with
the legal profession, offering evidence in court.
- How would you
face the challenge of unpicking the diagnostic complexities of
individuals who have a mix of neurodevelopmental disorders,
personality disorder and substance misuse, who are also victims of
trauma, domestic violence and abuse, and who do not adhere to their
treatment for hypertension and diabetes?
- How would you
set up long-term research projects, to understand why and how
treatments work in a particular way over the life
course?
- How would you
support and improve the lives of individuals and their families
where there is emerging dementia, or where the individual has
intellectual disability?
- How would you
stand up side by side with patient groups, in front of a health
select committee in Parliament, to fight for the best services for
those with mental illness?
Come and join
us in the best, most creative specialty within
medicine. Make a difference: improve
lives.
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