Psych Socs: student-led psychiatry societies, an untapped resource for recruitment and reducing stigma

Abstract

Medical recruitment and retention are national problems. Psychiatry has been more affected than many specialties, as a result of stigma from the public and other healthcare professionals. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has undertaken several initiatives to redress this, notably the ‘Choose Psychiatry’ campaign. In this editorial we argue that student-led university psychiatry societies are a wonderful but frequently untapped resource to help attract the brightest and best medical students to our profession. We describe the activities of three ‘Psych Socs’ across the UK and propose next steps to continue this work.