/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>30054437
my experience: graduated as an engineer and worked at a factory. hated it initially and wanted to go into psychiatry as well (the philosophical aspects of it are extremely fascinating: we are proscribing pills that arguably changes someone's *self*, how do the pills work, what does it mean to be mentally ill, is it all biological driven, etc etc). So I did the following

a) read a bunch of books on psychiatry and philosophy of psychiatry
b) e-mailed some of the authors
c) volunteered at a psych / mental health ward for a couple months

What I learned: (1) Psychiatry is currently bunk. We DON'T CASUALLY UNDERSTAND how the drugs work, instead we infer via statistics that the drugs do XYZ on people with ABC illness. It's black magic, and when I pushed some of these psychiatrists, they agreed with me (2) Psychiatrists pretty much just do med management. Hospital "techs" and social workers are the ones that talk with the patient, see how they're doing, write reports on the patient for the psychiatrist to go over, etc etc. It's all very clinical and technical and bureaucratic. Any idealism you have about the field will be crushed to a pulp. Imagine living in a Kafka novel.

From a professional psychiatrist I spoke with on whether I should join the field

>I hope you make your decision soundly. From a philosophical perspective, in my view, psychiatry’s philosophy is not what you think; it’s a good deal worse. But that doesn’t mean it will always be this way. The question is whether it’s worth your while, and just as importantly, whether you can make it any better.

good luck anon. you'd be taking a MAJOR STEP. prereqs, med school. The time and money spent is insane. I'm sure you could do it, but just think on it.