Psychiatric Education

Abstract

The conduct of this survey has brought home to us the great diversity which exists in the amount, content and methods of teaching psychiatry in U.K. medical schools today. No two schools are quite alike in the type of staff facilities, in the allocation of teaching time in the several years of the course, or in the persons available to act as teachers. After two trial runs, we evolved a schedule of inquiry which has enabled us to compare schools in a number of respects in which reasonably reliable and quantifiable data were available. This report necessarily concentrates upon those aspects in which the various schools can be compared with each other: it does not do justice to the full detail of all the teaching given in any one school. In particular, we have deliberately confined our attention to teaching which is given to all students, whether they take advantage of it or not. Except for some observations on organized periods of elective study, we have not dealt with the extra opportunities which arc available in a number of schools for students who go out of their way to seek additional experience in psychiatry. Our schedule of inquiry was discussed by one of us personally with the psychiatrist responsible for teaching in every school except one—a London part-time teacher who remained obdurately “too busy” to comply with this request. It was found necessary, in the majority of cases, to supplement our interview and the schedule return by further inquiries; in a few particulars, and in respect of certain schools, we are still left in some uncertainty as to the accuracy of the information given to us. This report is submitted, however, as the best approximation possible within the limitations of our survey.