Public and Community Psychiatry

Unlike the comprehensive tomes available on public sector psychiatry, this book offers the psychiatry trainee and early-career psychiatrist a concise guide to the many roles he or she might be asked to provide in a public-sector mental health setting. It offers residents and early-career psychiatrists real-world case studies, example vignettes, literature and art that engage them in, and put them at-ease about, service in public psychiatry.

Physicians who choose to serve in public-sector mental healthcare settings and physicians-in-training assigned to public-sector mental health clinics may not be fully prepared for the many roles of the public and community psychiatrist. Public and Community Psychiatry is a concise guide for the resident and early-career psychiatrist called upon to serve in the roles of public-sector clinician, team member, advocate, administrator, and academician. Each chapter includes a concise description of these various roles and responsibilities and offers engaging examples of the public psychiatrist at work, as well as case-based problems typical of those faced by the public psychiatrist. Each chapter also features works of art and literature, usually from the public domain, in order to incorporate the core strengths of medical humanities into the dialogue of public-sector mental healthcare. This book aims to provide a level of support to psychiatrists that fosters their desire, individually and collectively, to serve the poor and the marginalized with grit and determination, and to broadly consider their potential to improve not only their patients'' well-being, but also these patients'' incorporation into their respective communities.