Poor Job Quality and the Decline of Public Psychiatry
Kevin Leehey M.D.1 and
John Misiaszek M.D.2
1 The Adolescent Inpatient Program at the Brattleboro Retreat in Brattleboro, Vermont, Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire
2 The University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson
The Brattleboro Retreat, Brattleboro, Vermont 05301
The alarming drop in the number of public-sector psychiatrists in recent years has caused great concern and has prompted efforts to attract young, talented psychiatrists to the public mental health system. To investigate their belief that poor job quality is an important contributor to the decline, the authors asked ten young public psychiatrists to rate their overall level of job satisfaction, to identify what they liked and disliked about their positions, and to speculate about what could be done to attract or retain public psychiatrists. Based on the psychiatrists' responses and a review of the relevant literature, the authors conclude that the public mental health field can better attract psychiatrists by facilitating their autonomy, promoting a medical model of mental illness, integrating public and private psychiatry, and improving benefits and salaries.
