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Psych: How to become a psychiatrist

MBBS
(five years)		 OR Any undergraduate degree (three years) plus Gippsland graduate-entry MBBS course (four years)
plus   plus
Twelve month internships general hospital to
become a fully registered medical practitioner
plus

Basic training - (three plus years) including:

  • Core clinical skills
  • Ethical practice
  • Non-government organisations and consumer and carer involvement
  • Training in ECT and psychotherapy
  • Rural psychiatry
  • Indigenous psychiatry
plus

Advanced training (two plus years) focusing on one of these areas:

  • General psychiatry
  • Adult psychiatry
  • Addiction psychiatry
  • Non-government organisations and consumer and carer involvement
  • Training in ECT and psychotherapy
  • Rural psychiatry
  • Indigenous psychiatry

A psychiatrist is a medical practitioner/doctor who has taken further specialist training to be an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of all of the mental illnesses that humans can suffer.

Psychiatrists usually also develop further specialist expertise in sub-specialty areas such as working with elderly people or children or people in the forensic services (offenders and people in prisons) or the mental health problems associated with physical illness.

Psychiatrists are authorised to prescribe the large range of medications that are helpful in treating mental illness but many also have special skills in various forms of psychotherapy (eg counseling, talking therapies, CBT).

Psychiatrists usually work in public mental health services and/or hospital/university research and teaching professions.

Psychiatrists are also involved in a broad range of community issues and organisations, and are often called upon to assist both government and non-government agencies in the development of mental health policies and services.

To register and practice as a consultant psychiatrist you must meet the requirements of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP).

Further information

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Contact

School of Psychology and Psychiatry
General Office,
Room 404, Building 17,
Monash University,
Wellington Road,
Clayton, Victoria, 3168

T: +61 3 9905 3968
F: +61 3 9905 3948