Ever since psychiatry emerged as an independent field of medicine, it has stood in the shadows of other specialties, never progressing scientifically as fast as neurology, oncology, or cardiology. In many developed countries, the decline of mental hospitals has brought psychiatric services into closer professional contact than ever with these and other medical domains. Yet psychiatry continues to inhabit medicine's netherworld - within the mainstream clinically, outside it scientifically.
Ever since psychiatry emerged as an independent field of medicine, it has stood in the shadows of other specialties, never progressing scientifically as fast as neurology, oncology, or cardiology. In many developed countries, the decline of mental hospitals has brought psychiatric services into closer professional contact than ever with these and other medical domains. Yet psychiatry continues to inhabit medicine's netherworld - within the mainstream clinically, outside it scientifically.