What is the Impact of the Deficiency of Psychiatrists in India?
India has a shortage of mental health professionals and is ranked 127 out of 137 countries in the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Atlas. The shortage is acute, with only 130 psychiatrists per million people. This explains why India has one of the lowest rates of psychiatric treatment within the country.
Psychiatric disorders are common in India and there is a high prevalence of depressive disorders and anxiety among the general population. This leads to an even higher demand for mental health professionals, including psychiatrists. However, there aren’t enough specialists available to treat patients in need. Even though there are some new medical schools offering a three-year Psychiatry course as part of their MBBS curriculum, most universities do not offer this as part of their regular curriculum.
Even if you manage to find a psychiatry residency program in India, it might be difficult to get hired once you complete your training. This is because many potential employers believe that residents don’t have adequate autonomy or clinical skills to work independently outside supervision.
In this blog post we will go over different ways that you can become a psychiatrist with little-to-no difficulty, explore common reasons why the shortage persists despite efforts to reverse it, and look at how other countries have dealt with similar issues and made progress towards breaking their own psychiatrist shortage cycles.
