Consultation Liaison psychiatry is also commonly referred to as CL-Psychiatry for brevity.
CL psychiatrists typically work in a hospital setting, providing psychiatric support to teams caring for patients with multiple medical problems. Their role is to contribute to a patient's care by leaving psychiatry-specific recommendations. The CL psychiatrist is known as the consultant, and the physician who coordinates the patient's overall care is referred to as the patient's primary physician.
For example, if a person is hospitalized for a heart condition, but also has a long-standing history of needing psychiatric medications, a CL psychiatrist may be consulted. The CL psychiatrist will work closely with the primary team to ensure that the patient's treatment plan moving forward incorporates safe and effective psychiatric medications that will not interfere with their heart condition.
Also, occasionally a patient may be hospitalized for a medical condition that can cause or worsen behavioral or thought problems. For instance, very ill hospitalized patients may begin to also have challenges with their ability to concentrate, to sleep, or to tell what is real from what is not real. A CL psychiatrist may be consulted to help the primary team manage these psychiatric symptoms, while the primary team works towards improving the patient's overall health.
As more emergency rooms work to expand their emergency psychiatric services, they will often hire CL psychiatrists to see patients in the ER who have psychiatric concerns. In those cases the ER team is the primary team, and the CL psychiatrist provides recommendations on what care can be started in the emergency room and what care would require a patient to be transferred to a psychiatric care center.
To become a board certified CL psychiatrist, a person must finish medical school and then complete a residency in adult psychiatry. Then the physician must also complete an additional year of training that focuses on the type of cases most often presented to a CL psychiatrist. CL subspecialty certification is provided via the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN).
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