Psychiatry 2.0

This was originally submitted for an essay competition on the topic:
What will Psychiatry look like in 2050?

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A day of a psychiatrist in 2050 will not be very different to our own. We will still sit on our cushy chairs opposite our patients. We will still use our ears to listen to stories and our mouths to share our sympathies. We will still offer compassion and non-judgement, reassurance and understanding. We will offer structure to chaos; a medical lens through which patients can view their suffering. We will still be doctors.

Perhaps the drugs we prescribe will be a little different. Perhaps they won’t be as difficult to pronounce and will contain fewer side effects. Perhaps we’ll be able to look into our patient’s genetic history and find out which medications we should avoid and which could cause the greatest change. Or perhaps we’ll be able to offer our patients a choice, with information that is shared in a way that they can understand, whether it be through apps or a notebook they keep by their side. Perhaps we’ll become better at understanding our patients’ symptoms and what it means to live a life with a mental illness, whether that be by transforming medical research to include the patients voice or listening to our patients when they are well and letting them decide their own future.

Or perhaps we’ll work on wards where our patients can truly rest. Perhaps we’ll work in a place where intrusive observations are a thing of the past, where a hospital is more than just a row of bedrooms and the biopsychosocial model will truly come alive. Perhaps the concrete walls and barely-open windows will give way to fresh air, perhaps the greyness of the ceilings will fade into colours that bring memories of warmth instead of prison. Perhaps our patients’ days will be filled with structure and activities that remind them of who they are, no longer trapped within four walls where pacing the corridors becomes the only way of getting any exercise. Perhaps the office will no longer have a door that is always closed so that dialogue becomes a two-way process.

2050 will not just give us new technology and shiny new hospitals; it will also give us new patients. Different patients. Patients who know their rights and expect the best care. Patients who will know that best care means what is best for me and not just for the ward. Patients who know that their lives are made up of more than their future risk or their psychiatric history. Patients who will expect their choices to be written at the top of every documentation, who will expect more than a bundle of neatly wrapped NICE Guidelines, who will expect their stories to be heard and their concerns to be listened to. Patients who expect not to be treated as patients but as human beings.

Or maybe the Royal Colleges will decide to throw it all up in the air and mesh Psychiatry and Neurology into one.