|
Dear Reader
I am a Chinese-born American psychiatrist who has been on a multicultural career
odyssey for more than four decades. Working in every kind of locale from the
jungles of Borneo to the borough of Brooklyn, I have treated patient populations
as diverse as Hasidic Jews, Ecuadorians, and Ibans-in care settings ranging
from Mobile Crisis Vans to walk-up apartments, urban streetcorners to family
centers, wood longhouses to high-rise hospitals.
I believe that my unique, rich
and often harrowing experiences treating psychiatric patients-both in
healthcare teams and alone-makes for a fascinating and instructive look at how
a modern psychiatrist practices his profession on multicultural patient
populations in diverse settings.
In telling my story in the first person and
giving intimate accounts of my personal experiences, I believe my book brings to
life the abstract concepts presented in textbooks about what it is like for a
mental health professional to practice multicultural psychiatry at the end of
the 20th century. I also hope my story informs psychiatrists and other mental
health professional how to adapt to new and varied professional situations,
settings, directives, supervisors, coworkers, and patient populations.
If I have
been successful in my endeavor, then my story should provide a "window" through
which modern health practitioners can see, however imperfectly or incompletely,
the future of psychiatry in the 21st century-when every nation is becoming
increasingly multicultural, and mental health professionals are being required
to know how to effectively diagnose and treat people from diverse national,
ethnic, racial, cultural, and religious groups.
[Previous] [Next]
| About the Book and Author |
| Table of Contents and Complete Text of Book |
| Order the Book |
| How to Contact Us |
Back to Home Page |
|
|
