Hello everyone, I was wondering if it other professionals on here could tell me if being a psychiatrist is more than just mainly prescribing medications? I like the idea of being able to prescribe medications, but I also want to help people by talking with them, giving them an evaluation ect. Any and all help is appreciated thanks!!
Psychiatry can be more than just prescribing medications. It is true that many psychiatrists, especially in private practice, are mainly responsible for making medication adjustments for patients. Those psychiatrists are still involved in the evaluation of the person, so evaluation is always a part of a psychiatrist's job. Talk therapy is something that some psychiatrists do, and others don't. A psychiatrist (and a group practice) can typically make more money by seeing patients for brief medication visits than they can for longer therapy sessions. For this reason, a psychiatrist is often part of a group to do the medication management piece of treatment and a psychologist or social worker may be the person to provide talk therapy.
Nonetheless, there are many psychiatrists who do talk therapy as a part of their work. There are a few who do primarily talk therapy with very little medication management, but that is definitely rare these days. There are a few more who will see some patients just for talk therapy, and have other patients they see for talk therapy or medications. Many more will see patients for both medications and talk therapy as a typical mix of their practice. And then a large number of psychiatrists just do medication management.
Keep in mind that for most psychiatrists who do "just medication management", these doctors are often skilled in talk therapy and will work in various talk therapy approaches during their meetings with patients about medications.
Look into alternative avenues of practice. E.g., the difference between holistic vs traditional, primary care provider medicine (i.e., in a public hospital) is great in aspects such as how you view the patient and patient history in order to form a avenue of treatment. Also, if you are interested in the helping people aspect of psychiatry, than look into civil or volunteer service as a psychiatrist; if you are in an environment practicing with patients who don't have the ability to purchase or commit to medications, then it no longer becomes an option.