Psychiatry and General Practice

Can a doctor practice psychiatry and general practice medicine at the same time? And if they could would you first complete your one year general medicine intership and then your four year psychiatry residency?

Anyone practicing family medicine will be practicing psychiatry every day. The only difference is, as a family doctor you need to know your limitations and not hesitate to call upon a psychiatrist if things get too difficult.
As to combined practice; I know University of Oklahoma-Tulsa has a combined family med/psychiatry program. It consists of 3 years of family med followed by two years psychiatry. I’m sure there are other similar programs.

I can tell you that a prelim medicine year does NOT prepare you to practice outpatient medicine because most of your time you’re IN the hospital where it’s a very different ballgame. As Linda said, there are a few FM/Psych residency programs - I believe they’re five years long. There are also IM/Psych programs; again I think they’re five years.
And yeah, there are days when I think I AM practicing mostly psych in my capacity as an FM doc…
Mary