Why psychiatrists leave the public sector

Abstract

The flight of psychiatrists from public mental health facilities must be halted if the sickest psychiatric patients--the severely and chronically mentally ill--are to receive the best care and treatment possible. The author emphasizes the need for commitment by organized psychiatry, universities, and communities to support the public sector and those working in it. He examines the factors that influence psychiatrists to enter public service and those that eventually cause them to leave. He notes that the departure of public hospital psychiatrists for quasi-public settings has parallelled the transfer of patients to community settings, and that these psychiatrists may now be treating in such settings patients they once saw in the hospital.