The role of the psychiatrist as medical director: A survey of psychiatric administrators

Previous surveys of public and community psychiatrists have demonstrated th at medical directors perform a wider variety of tasks, and experience incre ased job satisfaction, compared to staff psychiatrists. Notwithstanding res pondents' belief that clinical collaboration tasks contribute most to job s atisfaction, the performance of administrative tasks is most highly correla ted with overall job satisfaction. The current survey was undertaken to det ermine whether these findings could be replicated among hospital-based psyc hiatrists. Demographic and job characteristic profiles of hospital-based ps ychiatrists were clearly distinguished from those of community psychiatrist s. Despite these differences, task profiles and job satisfaction parameters of hospital-based psychiatrists were comparable to those previously report ed for community psychiatrists.