An important aspect of family medicine education in the United States and abroad is behavioral medicine. Interpersonal and communication skills, mental health assessment, and sensitivity to diverse patient populations are areas of curricular importance. This article describes the behavioral medicine portion of a family medicine consultation with Vietnam, in progress since 1999. The needs assessment for behavioral medicine reveals few monetary or personnel resources available for training family physicians or caring for patients with mental health problems. Challenges of conducting cross-cultural consultations are many and include confronting language barriers.

Available literature supports the effectiveness and safety of generic clozapine formulations in patients who previously were stable during treatment with brand-name clozapine. The risk of poor outcome after conversion to a generic clozapine formulation appears to be low but difficult to predict. Patients should be closely monitored during the first one to three months after conversion from one formulation to another.

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Teaching psychiatry residents who are working in the community with individuals who are mentally ill and homeless needs to address a number of unique ethical conflicts that arise in this area. The authors outline approaches to this teaching.

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