Teaching Child Psychiatry in the U.S.A.

Abstract

There is no field of medicine that requires as much integration of the biopsychosocial mesh of human beings as the subspecialty of child psychiatry. In the U.S.A. the linkages between new knowledge of biological and psychological data and the constant changing social fabric are intricately woven into the tapestry of our perceptions about our child patients. One of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of teaching child psychiatry is delineating, studying and integrating the biological, psychiatric and social aspects of our child and adolescent patients. In doing this we should not sacrifice medical rigor, skill and ethos. The child psychiatric trainee has to increase his medical skill and knowledge by continuous artistic care of his patients and by thorough, scholarly research pursuits. He or she has to become the “artistic scientist”¹. While learning child psychiatry, the trainee has to continually increase his knowledge of general psychiatry. Child psychiatrists treat the unresolved parental dilemmas which profoundly affect parents in their parenting roles. Parents and children are under the continuous impact of the present and the past which determines their anticipation and expectation of the future.