Dr. Brian Welsh of the Coleman Behavioral Clinic talked to members of the Phi Delta Epsilon medical fraternity Wednesday about life as a forensic psychologist.

Appearing as the fraternity’s first guest speaker of the semester, Welsh spoke to the pre-med students about psychology and medical school.

“It was really interesting to hear the different types of medicine,” said Destiny Jamison, junior biology major and secretary of the fraternity. “I want to be a pediatrician, so when I shadow doctors, I usually hear about how kids are developing and how a patient is either [responding] to the medicine or not. So to really get to see the mental health side of it. . . It’s amazing to see the different specialties of medicine with it.”

At age 42, Welsh said that being not far removed from med school is beneficial to being up to date with new trends. New trends suggest that the field of psychology is growing and needs attention.

“Dr. Welsh was one of our better speakers,” said Cody Hughes, junior chemistry major and fraternity president. “Some doctors are reluctant and some of them are a little older, and the problem we have with that is the older generation of doctors are kind of separated from the medical field. Medical school has changed a lot since a lot of them are in their 50s and 60s. But him being a younger doctor, not far out of medical school is definitely a help for a lot of our students.”

As with any major, many pre-med majors switch their concentration before graduation. Welsh said he went through medical school thinking he would be a pediatric doctor, but later learned he enjoyed psychology much more.

“So many people will change what they want to do by hearing different speakers, and we get different schools to come here,” Jamison said.

Welsh also discussed the importance of learning how to balance a budget. Looking back on his time as an undergraduate, he said he would have liked to take a business class to better prepare him.

Last year, the fraternity welcomed a speaker on the subject of balancing money in the medical field. With the large volume of doctors in the area, Hughes said the group looks to have as many speakers as possible.

“We have very tight network of doctors and students from our organization that have graduated from other chapters [come to speak],” Hughes said. “Usually two a month, and we try and mix it up between different kinds of doctors from different areas of the medical field. We bring in current medical students, some have just graduated, some are just going into it. You get every aspect of medicine that way.”

Contact Matt Lofgren at [email protected].