A psychiatrist (also archaically called an alienist) is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders.American Psychiatric Association. (Unknown last update). What is a Psychiatrist. Retrieved March 25, 2007, from http://www.healthyminds.org/whatisapsychiatrist.cfm As part of their evaluation of the patient, psychiatrists are one of only a few mental health professionals who may prescribe psychiatric medication, conduct physical examinations, order and interpret laboratory tests and electroencephalograms, and may order brain imaging studies such as computed tomography or computed axial tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron emission tomography scanning.Fact: date=April 2008

Psychiatry in the professional world

Psychiatrists are medical doctors (MD, DO, etc) who specialize in treating mental illness using the biomedical approach to mental disorders.Fact: date=April 2008 Psychiatrists can also go through training to conduct psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and/or cognitive behavioral therapy, but it is their medical training that differentiates them from other mental health professionals.Fact: date=April 2008

Subspecialties

The field of psychiatry itself can be divided into various subspecialties. These include:

• Child and adolescent psychiatry
• Adult psychiatry
• Geriatric psychiatry
• Learning disability
• Behavioral medicine
• Consultation-liaison psychiatry
• Emergency psychiatry
• Addiction psychiatry
• Forensic psychiatry
• Neurodevelopmental Disabilities
• Pain medicine
• Psychosomatic Medicine
• Sleep Medicine
• Combined Internal Medicine and Psychiatry (Med-Psych)
• Combined Family Medicine and Psychiatry
• Combined Neurology and Psychiatry
• Combined Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry

Some psychiatric practitioners specialize in helping certain age groups; child and adolescent psychiatrists work with children and teenagers in addressing psychological problems. Those who work with the elderly are called geriatric psychiatrists or geropsychiatrists. Those who practice psychiatry in the workplace are called industrial psychiatrists in the US (occupational psychology is the name used for the most similar discipline in the UK). Psychiatrists working in the courtroom and reporting to the judge and jury, in both criminal and civil court cases, are called forensic psychiatrists, who also treat mentally disordered offenders and other patients whose condition is such that they have to be treated in secure units.