Yasmina Kattou, edited by Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: Thibaut Durand / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
The National College of University Psychiatry (CNUP) is launching a television advertising campaign this Monday intended to attract students to this specialty, the victim of numerous prejudices. In France, there are fewer than 16,000 professionals, for 13 million people affected by a psychiatric disorder.
Psychiatry does not attract enough young people: among medical students, 37% say they are afraid of it. It is to remedy these fears that the National College of University Psychiatry (CNUP) is launching a campaign of television advertising spots starting this Monday, with the aim of breaking down prejudices. In France, there are fewer than 16,000 psychiatrists, even though the needs are enormous: 13 million people are affected by a psychiatric disorder.
Stubborn prejudices
Why this disenchantment with psychiatry? In reality, it is considered less prestigious by students than surgery, ophthalmology or cardiology. The prejudices surrounding the specialty are also tenacious, regrets Professor Olivier Bonnot, president of the CNUP. “10% of medical students continue to think that psychiatrists are as crazy as their patients,” he remarks at the microphone of Europe 1. “The prejudices surrounding confinement, the old images that we have psychiatric asylums, do not motivate medical students very much,” adds the professor.
Another preconceived idea that hurts the profession is to say that in psychiatry, we only overload patients with medication. This is false, Olivier Bonnot retorts: “We have a remarkably effective arsenal of therapeutic interventions,” he emphasizes. “It’s not just medication, very far from it. 75% of the people entrusted to us will get much better and heal with recovery,” underlines the psychiatrist.
The latter hopes that the seduction operation will work since the stakes are high. Today, a quarter of the 15,500 French psychiatrists are over 65 years old.