A Challenge to the Newest Members of Our Profession

During the first week of July about 1,400 psychiatry residents completed their residency training and became psychiatrists. I extend a heartfelt welcome into the most exciting of medical specialties. As this cohort of 1,400 comes into psychiatric practice, another cohort of 500 colleagues will be leaving practice because of retirement, disability, or death. Each group deserves the highest respect and support from their professional organization and each of us as individuals.

I must admit that I envy the resident class of 2001 as they begin their careers. In the last decade we have seen biopsychosocial research make broad gains in our field. Because of this new research and our broad psychotherapeutic traditions, each new resident has knowledge of human behavior and a treatment armamentarium that I could only dream of just a few decades ago. It will be up to us and the Class of 2001 to maintain the core principles of the doctor-patient relationship, privacy, and psychotherapy while incorporating these scientific advances into the daily clinical treatment of our patients. Each generation of psychiatrists has had the opportunity to define its roles in medicine and society and to make an impact on the burden of mental illness for individual patients’ and the public’s health. Now it is the Class of 2001’s turn.

Before finishing its formal training, I have one final pop quiz for the Class of 2001.

• Are patients’ needs and rights your highest priority?

• Are you setting and determined to live by the highest professional standards?

• Are you committed to continuing your medical education throughout your professional life cycle?

• Will you work hard to be a clear communicator with your patients, their families, and society?

• Will you be an advocate for your patients and those individuals and groups who happen to have a mental illness?

• Will you join your professional organization and become involved in local, state, and national advocacy for your patients and profession?

• Will you get to know your local, state, and national politicians and educate them and their staffs about the needs of the mentally ill?

• Will you become clinical faculty for local residency programs and give something back through that program and help train the next generation of psychiatrists?

• Will you resist systems of care that undermine the doctor-patient relationship and give incentives for withholding care?

• Is it your goal to become a business person or a professional?

The American Psychiatric Association and your state association, district branch, and local chapter want to be helpful to you as you start out your practice and career. Please join the Early Career Psychiatrist Committee in your state association and make a difference.

By doing so, you will find support from colleagues, and more important, you will gain an opportunity to help your patients and your profession. ▪