Medical Students and Depression

[i_wanna_be_Brown]

Well, she herself got disappointed in psych because of widely used over-medication (keep in mind that it is a medical student observation, not exactly a professional assessment, so it was simply her opinion).

I agree with your D, especially with regard to what med students are exposed to on their psychiatry rotations. They are almost always exclusively inpatient psych and if they do get any outpatient exposure, they’re usually not sitting in on people who are doing analysis or other extensive outpatient talk therapy, they’re watching people come in for 15mins to get a refill on their meds and make sure their bodies are doing ok on the medication (which is also the most cost effective way to perform outpatient psych unless you’re going to go insurance free and only treat rich people).

Frankly, I feel that maybe “anxiety prone people” do not even belong in this profession as psychiatrist should bring a positive outlook to their patients. But again, this is just my opinion.

Within the field of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy (where you have both MDs and PhDs practicing) it’s standard practice to require all trainees to go through extensive therapy early on in the process (regardless of whether they think they need it) so that they are best equipped to handle the emotions/feelings that will come up in the process of administering therapy. So they disagree that having anxiety precludes you, but they agree with you that medical professionals need to be in good mental health in order to practice medicine, particularly when it comes to practicing within the field of mental health.

Overall, I agree that the prior history of anxiety / depression may be amplified under stresses in medical school / residency which was also mentioned by my D. Further, I would suggest that the people with the prior history of anxiety / depression maybe should not be considering the medical school altogether, they may get broken beyond repair so to speak or there may be other implications, like several cases of shingles in the mid. 20’s as it happened in D’s medical school class.

I disagree with you here though (not the first sentence). Certainly if someone isn’t doing anything to manage their anxiety/depression (and I’m not necessarily talking about medication here) they’re probably going to fall apart, but I’ve seen several classmates be incredibly successful in medical school and residency placement (and in residency) with mental health diagnoses. In fact I’d bet the ones who actually acknowledge they have anxiety/depression fare better than the people who don’t think they have any mental health issues because they’re more self-aware.

My D is pre-med but as yet undecided about research vs MD. It concerns me.

Haven’t gone through the clinical years yet (starting this summer) but as someone who has done the first 2 years of MD (including step 1) and is almost done with their PhD, I can say that the PhD has been far more stressful and mentally taxing so far.