Professionalism in psychiatry and medicine: a hot topic.

The question of identity of psychiatry as a medical profession as well as of the future of psychiatry has been the subject of much controversial discussion, views and proposals (Katschnig 2010, Kecmanovic 2011). These issues are strongly associated with professionalism, the way how we define and practice fundamental principles and professional responsibilities in psychiatry (Jakovljević 2012). Contemporary psychiatry has not yet been a coherent field of scientific theory as well as one unified and standardized practice. It seems as an aggregative collection of different medical and non-medical branches established on a loosely assembled set of various kinds of theoretical concepts about etiopathogenesis, pathological conditions and meanings associated with mental disorders, all based on different kinds and strengths of evidence and it is being practiced in many different ways with different treatment results. Psychiatry today is claimed to be threatened by centrifugal tendencies and its future is defined by either being incorporated in other medical specialties or being deprived of its medical character (see Katschnig 2010). The term “postpsychiatry“ (see Bracken & Thomas 2005) suggests the same foreboding. Psychiatrists in almost all countries have faced many challenges that endanger the existence of psychiatry as a medical profession so that is possible to speak about confrontation between medical psychiatry and non-medical psychiatry in the area of mental health science and practice. The ability to work efficiently in teams (McQueen et al. 2009) and comprehensively understand salutogenesis and pathogenesis as well as to treat mental disorders in holistic manner is fundamental to the role of contemporary psychiatrists to overcome conflicts between medical psychiatry and other mental health disciplines. Psychiatrists today has the historical opportunity to influence, guide and lead mental health teams and shape the future of mental health care, medicine and society. The changing nature of science, medicine, society and psychiatry reflects on the changing concept of professionalism in psychiatry. A proper and widely accepted definition of professionalism in psychiatry as a transdisciplinary science and practice is essential for its future.