Questions about psychiatrists: What if??....?

Question

I know that besides specializing in psychiatry in residency, psychiatrists took the same medical training as other doctors to become a general practicioner-would they technically be able to practice as a general practicioner?

If psychiatrists have an M.D., does that mean they know as much about the human body & brain as other doctors? I know they are skilled about medications.

If so, then why aren't they the ones who give the shots, etc. to a patient in a psych ward, etc.,?

If they are an M.D., if there was nobody else around, then would they be obligated to atleast try to help someone, if they were hurt because they have a medical background?

Technically wouldn't that make them a kind of neurologist? My new psychiatrist had a model brain on his shelf and it had stuff written on it.

Answer 1

Psychiatrists are physicians, they specialise in cognitive science

Answer 2

psychiatrists go to medical school, and have an MD just like someone who becomes a surgeon does. when you ask if they are as skilled about medications, the thing is, though all doctors have the same basic training, certain specialities obviously are going to know/need to know certain things. therefore, they will have different skills. an internist will be more skilled than a psychiatrist in diagnosing more physical diseases, while a psychiatrist will be more skilled at diagnosing mental disorders, because that is what they need to know for their specific job.  

Answer 3

Psychiatrists do not have the same training as general practitioners--everyone goes to medical school, so the only difference there is that they might have taken different electives in their senior year.  However, the training you get for your specialty happens after med school, in residency.  Psychiatrists do one year of general internal medicine followed by three years of specialized psychiatric training, while internists do three years of medicine.  That's not a minor difference.  You train to do what you're going to do most of the time, so internists have a lot more general expertise in medical problems while psychiatrists have expertise in psychiatric ones.  Psychiatrists are experts on psych meds, but they aren't necessarily going to be up to date on all the latest drugs for high cholesterol.  They may be, but it wouldn't be something I'd expect.  And even if you learned it in med school, you tend to forget the stuff you don't use all the time.

Psychiatry and neurology are indeed intimately entwined where training and subject matter are concerned and in fact they have the same Board, the group that qualifies doctors after residency.  However, they don't do the same things although they might even treat the same patients--psychiatrists are not neurologists.  Psychiatry tends to be less concerned with the intrinsic workings of the brain than with the behavioral manifestations, if that makes sense.  But there is a lot of overlap, and it's getting more so all the time.

There's nothing to stop any MD from giving injections, and they can and do.   But you don't need an MD to give a shot, so usually it's someone else who does that, a nurse or a medical technician.  That's not always the case, though--sometimes we are required to be the ones who give a particular drug.

And as far as medical attention goes, giving first aid is not really something you'd require an MD for either, so whether or not they wanted to help would depend on what the situation was.  Doctors who work in hospitals are all required to be certified in life support, but a psychiatrist would certainly not try and treat a patient in a hospital instead of an ER doc or an ICU intensivist.  If you just mean if they happened across a street accident, it would be up to them whether they wanted to give aid, just like anyone else.  But if you just went to a psychiatrist and said "I have this ulcer, can you treat me for it?" they would almost certainly refer you to a GP or a gastroenterologist.  (There is nothing to stop them from treating problems outside of their specialty--any MD can write a prescription for anything, within reason--but I think most people are hesitant to treat things outside of their area of expertise.)