The external posting is among the most underutilised opportunities in Indian psychiatry residency training. Each year, hundreds of MD Psychiatry residents are sent to other institutions for four to twelve weeks of training in subspecialty areas their parent departments cannot offer, most commonly child and adolescent psychiatry, psychotherapy, and deaddiction medicine. Some return transformed. Many […]
Tag: MINDS Newsletter
The Auspicious Day
Millions of people worldwide believe certain days are auspicious and specific times in a day are auspicious. There will be millions of days that are not auspicious and billions of hours that are not auspicious if we get into this belief system. Just as I joined District Government Hospital as an Intern, I vaguely remember […]
When Help is Needed
Medical students often seek help when they or someone they know is going through a medical issue. But when it comes to mental health, they remain hesitant to approach the professionals. Sometimes it is due to stigma; sometimes it is just not knowing where to begin. Academic pressure, examinations, long study/work hours, and the demands […]
A Glimpse of the Newspaper
As I was travelling a long distance to medical college, I would strive hard to keep myself engaged throughout the journey because I am among those who can’t doze off during travel! Occasionally, reading the newspaper & every word in it was a time killer strategy, more so because more than a decade ago, smartphones had […]
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis
No other profession demands longer learning than the medical profession. Even after years of undergraduate education, postgraduate training, and all the countless exams, medical training is still incomplete. If one is to keep the edge, they always need to be revising old knowledge and updating themselves with recent advances. In many ways, education continues long […]
When Scrolling Starts Scaring: Social Media and Health Anxiety
What begins as a harmless scroll can quietly turn into something much heavier. A few minutes on social media after work or before bed can quickly shift from light entertainment to exposure to a stream of alarming health content. Videos about silent symptoms, posts describing missed diagnoses, and warnings about everyday habits are woven into […]
The Amazing Teaching Skill of the Student !!
The class began for final-year medical students; as previously notified to them, I called the student who was assigned a five-minute presentation on the topic. As the student initiated the session and concluded enthusiastically, I was stunned by the student’s ability to conceptualise the topic, the presenting skills & grasp the section of the presentation. […]
Empathy: The Most Powerful “Prescription” in Psychiatry
A patient enters the OPD quietly. They avoid eye contact, sit at the edge of the chair, and answer every question with a hesitant “yes” or “no.” As postgraduate residents, many of us initially focus on symptom checklists and diagnostic criteria. “Sleep?” “Appetite?” “Suicidal thoughts?” The interview moves on. The checklist is completed. But the […]
My Psychiatry Posting Reflection: Two Weeks That Changed My View
I completed my psychiatry intern posting for a duration of two weeks. Before starting this posting, I had many misconceptions about psychiatry as a subject and about psychiatric hospitals. Like many people, I believed that psychiatric wards are frightening places, patients are violent, and treatments are harsh. I had also heard many negative things about […]