Who is a psychiatrist?

In addition to being a physician, a psychiatrist should have some unique characteristics different from others. First of all, a psychiatrist is also a human being. He has an identity, standards of judgement, behavior specific to his personality characteristics. A psychiatrist should be an intellectual. For this, he must have sufficient level of knowledge to recognize the community and its culture thoroughly. While gaining knowledge and experience, he must carry out his profession with multidimensional point of view to be neutral and appropriate for patient rights. In attaining this feature, he should have an interest in other disciplines like philosophy, psychology, sociology, antrophology, ethics, law, literatue, communication, cybernetics and art branches. These disciplines and information they carry are beneficial to a psychiatrist in recognizing and helping a patient. An intellectual should have a critical point of view that could interrogate, evaluate and act in a multidimensional manner. From this point on an intellectual background would positively affect psychiatrist’s profession. [Anadolu Psikiyatri Derg 2011; 12(2.000): 0-0]