Psychosomatic Medicine 4:252-272 (1942)
© 1942 American Psychosomatic Society

The Organization of a Psychiatric Service for a General Hospital

¹ Neurological Service of Dr. Israel S. Wechsler, The Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, N. Y.

We are coming to realize that the domain of psychiatry is coextensive with the domain of medicine. Ultimately this must mean that a high degree of training in psychiatry will be as essential to the future physician as was a training in anatomy to our medical ancestors. In the meantime, however, while psychiatry struggles to perfect its methods, a type of partnership is necessary between psychiatry and all the rest of medicine which is unique. Psychiatry cannot play the rôle of a specialty among other specialties, because it must aim constantly to coordinate its work closely with all of the others. To achieve such a partnership an organization must be built up consisting of a series of psychiatric units, each of which is attached to one of the services in the hospital. The details of such an organization are described in this paper.

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