Psychiatry is the branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
The APA describes a psychiatrist as a medical doctor (M.D. or D.O.) who specializes in mental health, including substance use disorders. Training runs through medical school, examinations for a license to practice medicine, and four years of psychiatry residency. The first residency year is typically spent in a hospital; the rest covers diagnosis and treatment, including psychotherapy and psychiatric medications. The APA puts the total at typically 12 years of education after high school for a general adult psychiatrist and up to 14 years for a child and adolescent psychiatrist.
According to the APA, most psychiatrists in the United States take a voluntary written and oral examination given by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology to become board certified, and must engage in continuing education to keep that status. Some complete fellowships certified by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, in areas including addiction, child and adolescent, forensic and geriatric psychiatry.
The APA lists private practices, clinics, hospitals, courts and prisons, nursing homes and military settings among the places psychiatrists work, and reports that about half of U.S. psychiatrists maintain private practices. Its site describes the DSM-5-TR, the text revision of the fifth edition of the 📝Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), as the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States.