„I Chose to Become a Doctor without Realizing that I would be Confronted with Human Suffering. Later – and to this Day – this has Motivated me Never to Stop Learning.” Dr. Margarita Shoylekova and Dr. Ignat Petrov in a conversation with Anelia Kassabova and Kristina Popova

Abstract

Margarita Shoylekova (b. 1945) and Ignat Petrov (b. 1937) are a family of psychiatrists whose professional careers unfolded during a period of significant changes in psychiatric therapies. New psychiatric techniques and treatments were employed, and later abandoned, including insulin coma therapy, sleep therapy, sulfonazine therapy and other. In Bulgaria child psychiatry became institutionalized. Of decisive importance was the increasingly strong introduction of psychiatric medications (antipsychitics/neuroleptics). Dr. Margarita Shoylekova is a child psychiatrist and one of the first specialists in anorexia in Bulgaria, while Prof. Dr. Ignat Petrov is among the founders of Bulgarian gerontology in the 1960-es. The conversation addresses their personal experiences as professionals during a crucial period in Bulgarian psychiatry under state socialism and after its end.