Why Psychiatry?

For Jason Freeman, an African-American medical student in his fourth year at Georgetown University School of Medicine, a dinner for minority medical students hosted by the Washington Psychiatric Society in January helped him learn more about the field he has decided to pursue.

“As a neuroscience major at Brandeis University, I was always interested in psychiatry,” he told Psychiatric News.

Freeman said that during his psychiatry rotation, he “found that the field seems to fit my goals—it's the kind of medicine I eventually want to practice.”

At the dinner, Freeman said he learned about “the numerous opportunities available to those who enter the field in the coming years,” opportunities that can include research, clinical practice, and academic medicine.

He also was struck by the fact that the presence of minority psychiatrists“ is strongly needed” and that they “have almost complete freedom in where and how they choose to practice psychiatry.”