Nawal Nasser
Consultation-liaison psychiatry (CLP), also known as psychosomatic medicine, is a subspecialty of psychiatry that focuses on the care of patients with comorbid psychiatric and general medical/surgical conditions. CLP deals with the understanding and advancement of medical science, education, and the provision of healthcare for medically ill patients. There is a significant benefit in integrating inpatient CLP services. It facilitates diagnosis and management of patients with complex comorbid psychiatric and general medical conditions. Patients and their physicians perceive CLP services as destigmatizing, and often as a mean of ensuring optimal continuity of care. There are practical considerations, advantages and challenges that need to be considered when establishing a CLP service in any general hospital setting. Advantages include the provision of specialized multi-professional and holistic patient care which helps to shorten length of stay and facilitates a more coordinated approach to complex cases. Inpatient liaison Psychiatrists play a major role in collaborating with the medical/surgical teams to provide a strong focus on education and training of various medical/surgical teams. The phenomenology of somatization disorders, interactions of biopsychosocial factors, and the effectiveness of CLP interventions could yield potential collaborative research areas between liaison psychiatrists and the medical/surgical teams. The inpatient CLP service will require additional resource allocation to succeed otherwise it often will get encumbered by unpredictable schedules and variable numbers of consultations. These challenges could create obstacles in the path of the early-career psychiatrist (ECP) and foster an environment that may lead to dissatisfaction and burnout.