When you are on the unit you and your family will meet with doctors who are specialists in working with children and young people who may be suffering with emotional or mental health difficulties. These doctors are often referred to as psychiatrists.
A doctor’s role is to understand or ‘diagnose’ what sort of difficulties a young person may be experiencing, and to make recommendations about approaches to helping you recover. The doctors will do this by talking to you, your family, collecting information about important things in your life and linking with the rest of the team who will be supporting you while you are here in the unit. Recommendations doctors may make may be talking therapy, family work or prescribing medication, or a mixture of any of these. Psychiatrists have all originally trained as medical doctors, and the doctors on the unit will also look after your basic medical needs while you are here. This includes a general physical check-up after you are admitted, prescribing and monitoring medication, or any general reviews for coughs, colds, headaches etc. If needed the doctors may link with your own GP or help arrange referral to a specialist doctor for medical opinion.
