Steps to Becoming a Doctor/Psychiatrist

hello welcome to my life so I wanted to do this video to talk about as you can tell from the title the steps of becoming a psychiatrist and the reason I wanted to do this video is cuz I got a couple comments of people asking me how did I become a psychiatrist I don't know where to start I'm thinking about it but I'm not sure that kind of thing and this video isn't to try to encourage anybody to become a psychiatrist if that's not something that you want to do but this is just for the people who think that this might be something they want to do they want to just learn how you become a psychiatrist or a doctor or whatever so so I'll just start out the number one thing is that a psychiatrist is a medical doctor I'm not sure if people know that I understand that I know there's a lot of confusion between psychiatrists and psychologists and I do have a video on that if you're confused about the differences between that some of my family members still call me a psychologist and I get it it's not very clear on like the differences and that type of thing but yes I'm a psychiatrist and a psychiatrist is a medical doctor so most people determine whether or not they want to become a doctor when they are a very young some people straight out of the womb they are gonna be a doctor they already know it's predestined for them other people they figure out a little bit later maybe around high school I believe I was around the time when I figured out or decided that I wanted to become a doctor and it's a long journey it's about 12 years to become a doctor it's not something you can do overnight it's not a course that you can take it's just it's not something that you can just be trained for in a year and now you're a doctor I know a lot of people will know this but just wanted to just clarify that for anybody that doesn't know that but so it takes about 12 years so and that includes four years of undergraduate college four-year university getting a bachelor's degree you don't have to necessarily complete a pre-med program but there are certain classes that you have to take that are required and when you get to college they'll tell you what those classes are if you say I want to go to medical school there's usually counselors or I forget what they're called but the teachers or the people that work at the college or university they'll tell you okay you need to take this this in this class I knew people that were psychology majors you'll be an English major chemistry biology it doesn't really matter what your major is you just have to take those certain classes that qualify you for applying to medical school so then once you are in college you have to take the MCAT which is the Medical College Admission Test I believe that's what it stands for and the others do pretty well on that exam you have to try to do your best and that will really determine whether or not you will get into medical school it's kind of messed up but that's kind of how it works even if you have a four point nine GPA Nobel Peace Prize save ten lives if you don't do well on the MCAT they might just push you to the side and not even consider you so that's really important of course I'm exaggerating if you got to know about Peace Prize they probably wouldn't consider you but what I'm saying is if you're like an average student but you don't do well on the MCAT it makes it really hard and they put a lot of emphasis on that exam so you want to study and do well on that exam then yeah for anybody that comes in you can chime in if you have any questions let me know and I can answer them as I go as well so okay do well on the MCAT apply to medical school that's the next step so it's undergrad for four years then you have to go to medical school for four years and as many of you know or probably have heard medical school is quite difficult and I've heard you say you know it's not hard because of how difficult the content is but it's hard because of the mass sheer volume of information that you have to learn and the detail to which you have to learn that information is difficult and in a short amount of time so what I've learned kind of looking back is that people that are really organized and have a set way of studying they tend to do pretty well in medical school and those are those people that say Oh medical school isn't that hard it wasn't it was a breeze it was a breeze like no it's not a breeze but if you are very organized and I can see how it might be easy for you or easier but if you're not then you want to go into medical school and hit the ground running you want to try to get a study schedule you want to try to be as organized as possible don't underestimate medical school don't listen to those people who say oh it's easy it's not that hard don't listen to them don't listen to them cuz you don't know if it's hard for you it may not be hard for them but you don't know if it's gonna be hard for you so take it seriously do the best you can get a study schedule learn how to study and that will really really help you and serve you during that time when you're in medical school and this is these are things that looking back I wish I had known and I wish I'm kind of like talking to my younger self you know these are things I would have told myself do you need an undergraduate degree then a bachelor's degree okay so undergraduate degree is a bachelor's degree they're the same thing so yes you need to go to a four-year college undergraduate and get a bachelor's degree before you go to medical school yes and yes so in medical school you want to do your welcome you want to do as well as possible you want to try to of course learn absorb as much as you can because you have to take standardized exams in medical school called step exams and they are very hard step one it's probably one of the hardest things I have done in my entire life and that's just me personally other people might say all step one was easy I actually know one I've never heard anyone say that ever but um but some people it's not a big it's not a huge deal to them and I think that might be because over the years maybe they accumulated this information maybe just certain things make it easier for some people again maybe they are really good at studying maybe their parents were doctors so they around this information for a long time but if you were like me and you came from a family of no doctors and you I didn't even know what step one was before I got to medical school yeah so you really want to learn as much about that exam and study for that exam some people and I'm like I may be going a little bit too in-depth but step one is just a big exam that you need to be aware of and do very well on because it determines what specialties you can apply to if you don't do well on step one there are certain specialties that you just won't be able to practice and some of those are like dermatology surgery radiology those are the more competitive specialties where you have to do very very well on step one so that that test really determines the rest of your life if you are wanting to get into those specific specialty you really gotta take that test seriously and yeah don't underestimate step one okay so then you know take step one there's also a step two and step three you take step two after your third year you take step three during your residency okay so you finish that you finish medical school so psychiatrists they go to medical school oh hi how are you yeah you made it yeah so psychiatrists go to medical school that's the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist psychiatrists are medical doctors they go to medical school psychologists they go to graduate school in psychology okay so then you finish Medical School you apply to residency's then you are accepted into a residency and then once you graduate Medical School now you are a doctor and you start seeing patients so but in your residency you're seeing patients but you're still under supervision you're still training and but you're a doctor at that point and so that's what I just finished last year residency for psychiatry is four years and it varies for different specialties for some specialties it's only three years I'm just like the only medicine is three years are there a lot of residency for psychiatry yes there are quite a bit however over the last few years apparently there has been more people applying to psychiatry then there are spots available I think because of the growing numbers of people in medical school but the residency programs are staying the same so there's been kind of an issue with that lately so it has become more competitive but there are a large number of presidencies around the country yes so get into residency that's another four years and now that's when you start working you're working as a doctor however you are under supervision of another doctor called an attending who's already finished residency they're usually boys certified and they've been working for however many years and yeah you do that for four years you rotate a lot of different places you see a lot of different areas within psychiatry so what happens if you don't get into residency are you still a doctor um yeah you are still a doctor however you wouldn't be able to practice in that particular field that you were applying into um yeah you still you're still a doctor however I don't think you can practice because you have to go to a residency in order to be licensed to my knowledge so yeah I'm not sure what happens when that occurs you're still a doctor but I don't think you can practice I think you would have to go down a different career path at that point and it is sad you know that happens sometimes but doesn't mean that you know your life is over or anything it's just you just have to find a different career path but yeah so you go to residency finish that once you finish residency after 12 years now you are finally a an attending doctor and you're able to practice on your own you can open a private practice you can work for a hospital you can work for a group a clinic and yeah that's when you can decide what you want to do and that's kind of the spot that I'm in it's kind of weird because I've been in such a structured plan road trip for the past 12 years just doing whatever I was told to do like okay after college you go to medical school in medical school they tell you what to study what to do for each year residency similar type of thing and then now you're just out and it's up to you now you can do what whatever you want and it's great but it's also an adjustment I'll say that what are my future ambitions in psychiatry hmm that's a good question I I would love to reduce the stigma in the black community I would love to reduce that because I still feel like psychiatry has a little bit of a bad rap rep reputation just in general especially within the black community as well I see that a lot like people not wanting to go to therapy and feeling like oh I don't need that even though they clearly are depressed or going through a lot of different things especially black people in America there's a lot of trauma and I wish that people would be okay with addressing that instead of relying on other things because of that stigma and I feel like it kind of hurts the black community so reducing that stigma would be a great thing I would love to be associated with and just because it's not bad it's not it's not it doesn't mean you're you're weak or that you are less than it just means that you're taking care of yourself and really everybody I think would benefit from therapy everybody has things that they've experienced in their past that's affecting them now and it just helps you to be aware of it and it's more than just talking to somebody it's more than just getting things off your chest it can really be an eye-opening experience for you so that would be something that I was inspired to do but yeah that was a good question so those are the basic steps to becoming a psychiatrist I might do another video maybe going in-depth a little bit more maybe a little bit better quality but for now those are my thoughts on the steps to becoming a doctor slash psychiatrist if you have any other questions you can leave them in the comments and I will possibly make another video answering those questions that's kind of how I've been doing it if you leave a question I'll make a video to answer it instead of just writing in the comment section but yeah thank you for watching and I hope you have a great day

Channel: Rebecca Risks

Views: 13,520

Rating: 4.945055 out of 5

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Id: UACPmYYX56A

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019