The Importance of Psychiatric Training in Postgraduate Clinical Training: Results of a Questionnaire Study / 医学教育

A compulsory postgraduate clinical training system, which includes psychiatry as a requirement, will be started in 2004. However, many problems have been pointed out and discussed. In this report we offer 2 suggestions for making clinical training more useful. First, new residents should study not only psychiatric knowledge but also the attitudes of psychiatrists toward patients. Second, we psychiatrists should determine the practical requirements for the training of new residents. In such suggestions are implemented, Japanese psychiatry may change for the better.

Psychiatric Knowledge Required by General Physicians: from Investigations of Data of Practical Consultation-Liaison / 医学教育

A junior-resident training system that includes compulsory psychiatric training will be started in 2004. The contents of a training program required by all general physicians must be discussed. We investigated inpatients and outpatients at the department of psychiatry of the International Medical Center of Japan from the viewpoint of consultation-liaison psychiatry. We realized that first-year residents are likely to encounter organic mental disorders, such as delirium and dementia, and neurotic, stress-related somatoform disorders and, therefore, need to learn about these disorders from the start of training. However, we believe that schizophrenia, previously considered a core subject of psychiatric training, need not be studied in detail by all first-year residents.