The heartland of psychiatry, revisited

Abstract

The role of doctors will undoubtedly evolve as knowledge, and perverse ignorance become more universally available to all via the internet. The role of the psychiatrist must be to relate real advances in understanding and practice to the care that is actually delivered. At present it seems rather to be to sit in endless meetings and take responsibility for other people’s decisions. It becomes more not less important that psychiatrists have an academic understanding of what they are doing and a clear role within the services in which they work. Re-discovering the need for expert treatment in bipolar disorder could be a good place to start.