Preparing Psychiatrists for Real-World Impact.

New and future psychiatrists have a common blind spot.

I had the same blind spot.

It blocks them from seeing their full potential to change lives for the better.

It limits creative problem-solving.

The journey to becoming a fully-trained psychiatrist is long and arduous.

It teaches us to be rule followers.

Get good grades and volunteer a lot to get into a college pre-med program.

Get good grades and build a great CV to get into medical school.

Get good grades and crush the boards to get into residency.

Get good grades and collect glowing letters of recommendation for job applications.

Go do your job.

We can do better at inspiring our trainees to think outside the flawed box we’ve built.

Let’s encourage bold thinking in our future psychiatrists so that they can lead us in a wave of disruptive innovation and revolutionize the way we deliver care.

They need clinical skills.

They also need to know how world outside of academia works.

Let’s teach them leadership skills and endow them with the tools of implementation science.

We need to help them do great things for patients, improve population mental health, and get effective care to where it’s needed most.

Or, we can keep doing what we’ve always done and look forward to 20 more years of headlines declaring an ongoing “mental health crisis” in the US.

Photo Credit: Jack Bell Photography