What is Your Psychiatrist’s Ultimate Mission?

Who is a psychiatrist? I guess it is good that before we start this discussion about the ultimate mission of a psychiatrist, it would be better for us to know what these professionals do. Well, a psychiatrist is a medical specialist who is trained to treat mental disorders. Some people suffer chronic or temporary health problems that are treatable. The psychiatrist will evaluate and diagnose the mental problems before they can begin the treatment for the same.

Psychiatrists use various means to treat their patients. A weighted blanket is one such solution that can be used to soothe the patient and reduce signs of anxiety. The blanket produces a simulation of deep touch pressure to achieve the above results. This calms the patient and aids in sleep induction, as well as checks the symptoms of people suffering from ADHD.

The Primary Goals of Psychiatry

So, what is the primary reason why the field of psychiatry exists? What are the advantages of this field to the people who need help in mental health?  What does a psychiatrist want to achieve in their professional career? This is basically what the ultimate mission of a psychiatrist is. This is what we shall discuss in this article. Here are the ultimate goals of a psychiatrist:

To Be a Medical Expert and a Clinical Decision-Maker

Psychiatrists have a mission to provide the best care for their patients. These could be patients in hospitals, patients who come to the hospital on an outpatient basis as well as those they attend to in a community setting. In the provision of their medical help to patients, psychiatrists have to make sure that they are giving patient-centered care. It is the role of the psychiatrist to assess their patients and ensure they give the best assessment, diagnosis, and offer the best clinical intervention suitable for the patients. In the achievement of the best care for patients, psychiatrists need to work as a team to improve the quality of healthcare and safety provided to their patients.

To Be an Excellent Communicator

A great psychiatrist should be able to communicate their treatment plans, their diagnosis of the patient’s problems, and their professional therapy decisions to the patient. They should establish a good working rapport with the patient, their relatives, and family members. This entails sharing all their treatment plans and healthcare information with patients and their families. After they have made the right diagnosis of the patient’s mental health, psychiatrists should communicate this information to patients and their relatives in a language they understand. 

To Be a Collaborator

A patient suffering from mental problems can be treated in many dimensions. As such, a psychiatrist should be able to collaborate with other healthcare workers in the management of a patient. Depending on the needs of a patient, a psychiatrist should work with others, manage differences, and resolve any conflicts that could arise in the course of their professional work. A professional psychiatrist should work with other professionals and handover a patient to other healthcare professionals so that there is continuity in inpatient care.

To Be a Leader

It is the hope and wish of every professional psychiatrist to work towards better healthcare delivery systems in their teams and organizations so that patients can have the best care. They should steward the healthcare resources and ensure that such is delivered for better patient care. When they are actively engaged in professional practice, they should demonstrate the ability to lead and deliver the best care for all.

 Aspire to Be a Health Advocate

A good psychiatrist should endeavor to deliver and advocate the best healthcare services for their patients and other people in their vicinity or care. This should be done within and beyond the environment, they work in. The psychiatrist should advocate for and respond to the healthcare needs of the communities or populations they work with.

To Be Professional

This is another quality that psychiatrists should strive to possess in their line of duty. Psychiatrists should be committed to their patients and ensure they are applying the best practices and adhere to high ethical standards expected of them. They should also work with members of society to fulfill their expectations in health care. They should be committed to their profession by maintaining standards and taking part in physician-led regulation.

The above, being the ultimate mission of every psychiatrist means that the professionals can better deliver their services if they can aspire to achieve the above goals. However, for one to achieve the above goals, a psychiatrist needs to possess certain personal attributes that can make them deliver better to their patients.

Here are personal attributes that can make one a better psychiatrist:

1.    A good psychiatrist should listen attentively to their patients so that they can understand the concerns of the patient. This makes it easy for them to understand their patients comprehensively and administer suitable treatment.

2.    The psychiatrist should be curious and psychologically minded about the patient’s concerns.

3.    He should be able to engage the patient from the first encounter and develop a suitable therapeutic alliance with the patient. This makes it easy for the patient to open up and explain their needs.

4.    Should be compassionate and empathetic to their patients. However, pragmatism and firmness should find their boundaries as the doctor tries to help the patient.

5.    They should have an adequate breadth of knowledge. This means that a good psychiatrist should have a breadth of knowledge that makes them able to identify psychiatric conditions from the many overlapping diagnostics. The fact that many conditions can cause a patient to suffer mental illness means the doctor has to be knowledgeable about these conditions. Before he settles on any diagnosis, they should consider all the possibilities.

6.    Should have a depth of knowledge that makes him choose to treat certain conditions and refer others to more experienced professionals. He should know the limits of medical interventions to psychiatric conditions.

7.    The psychiatrist should be humble enough to know that a psychiatric diagnosis could be a subjective affair. Therefore, they should always be ready to interrogate a diagnosis and make a change where necessary.