Psychiatry
The Department of Psychiatry is in charge of the diagnosis and treatment of the behavior, thinking, and emotions of humans. It is known that complex factors, including biologic abnormalities of the central nervous system, psychodynamics, and social psychology, interact to cause various psychologic disorders such as major depression disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, panid disorder, dementia, and learning and developmental disroders.
The Department of Psychiatry at the Samsung Medical Center provides integrated treatment through close co-operation of around 100 medical personnel, including physicians, nurses, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, experts in specialized education, and social workers. We are also conducting basic and clinical research in the field of biologic psychiatry; treating major neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, major depression disorders, panic disorders, dementia, and learning and developmental disorders in pediatric patients; and actively performing psychotherapy and cognitive-behavior therapy, in order to play a leading role in medical care, research and education.
Major areas of treatment / Clinics
1. General Psychiatry, Pediatric Psychiatry
We have specialized faculty to provide top-notch medical services for various mental disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorder, personality disorder, dementia, sleep disorder and stress disorder.
Strength
Our pediatric section has 1 professor for special care and 2 clinical fellows who are specialized in psychiatric treatment of child and adolescent. Our faculty helps children develop normally and adjust well to their families, schools and communities by assessing, diagnosing and treating their mental challenges professionally. Our scope of care includes treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, developmental disability, emotional disturbance and learning disorder by means of psychological treatment, medication, speech therapy, and parental support.
Our depression center has a one-stop care system that delivers prompt patient assessment and psychological testing so that they can be diagnosed and treated in a timely manner. The depression center is Korea's first psychiatric clinic that exclusively focuses on depression. We are dedicated to providing excellent clinical care as well as conducting clinically informative innovative research. Our highly specialized multidisciplinary staffs provide quality clinical care to all patients who visited our clinic in collaboration with various medical professionals including staffs from the departments of internal medicine and obstetrics and gynecology. Since opening in January 16 2009, our center has treated 8,469 patients (as of May 2011) and the number of the patients benefiting from our best-in-kind care is on the increase, recently one thousand depression patients per month. Our psycho-oncology clinic was founded in May 2010 to help patients suffering from depression, anxiety and insomnia during their cancer diagnosis and treatment. Our clinic is the first psycho-oncology clinic that is integrated in Cancer Center in Korea. We are teamed with the faculty of the Departments of Psychiatry and Oncology as well as the nurses, social workers and cancer training staff for comprehensive treatment. Doctors and nurses specializing in the mental health of cancer patients assess treatment needs of each patient an offer a one-stop service that enables the patients to take the psychological examinations and receive respective treatment needed on the same day. Our clinic expects to be the leader in mental health care and the field of study of the human mind, having helped 2,098 cancer patients since opening, recently two hundred cancer patients per month.
Providing quality professional medical services and pursuing leading-edge clinical research, SMC's Department of Psychiatry will be there for your mental well-being and happiness in life.