A video on “Why Psychiatry” is now available on the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) website and YouTube channel
This video was prepared by the 2020-23 Action Plan Group on Medical Students and conveys the relevance of Psychiatry in Medicine. It was presented by the members of this Group, psychiatry residents, and medical students from around the world.
We are thankful to Psychiatry Residents (Dr. Tianqi "Nina" Luo (USA), Dr Aathira J. Prakash (INDIA) & Dr. Tatiana Skugarevskaya (BELARUS) & Medical Students (Ogada Lavine Adhiambo (KENYA),Leila Sarra Chaibi (TUNISIA), Francisco Moreno (MEXICO), Theebhana Prethipan (CANADA) & Varshinee Sathyanarayanan (IRELAND) for their support and excellent contributions to this video.
With this video, we hope to explain the:
- various forms of practicing psychiatry,
- challenges due to the worldwide shortage of psychiatrists,
- unique qualities of being a psychiatrist (i.e., resilience, compassion, empathy),
- importance of social determinants of health,
- difference of taking care of people rather than taking care of diseases, and in general
- relevance of mental health and specifically medical student’s mental health.
It is our hope that this video helps to close the gap between the field of psychiatry and medical students who do not have enough information to understand and appreciate the value of mental health. We wish to convey the message that mental health is important across all fields of medicine, particularly psychiatry, which is the field that specializes in preventing, diagnosing, and treating people with mental illness. This video should help answer the question, #WhyPsychiatry?
The video is available in English, French, Spanish and Russian and can be viewed on the WPA YouTube channel here or you can watch the videos by clicking on the links below:
Author: Dr. Bernardo Ng (Member of the WPA Working Group "Medical Students" Leadership team)