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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