How is Psychiatry Taught to Australian and New Zealand Medical Students?

Abstract

There is a need to broaden the clinical experience of students to better equip them for future medical practice. There appears to be a serious mis-match between the settings in which most students are taught and the settings in which most will work later as non-psychiatric practitioners. It was disappointing that psychological therapies received so little attention given the central place of counselling in modern medical practice.

A survey of academic provision for old age psychiatry in the UK and Ireland

“…For example, Faire and Katona (1993) reported a median proportion of psychiatry teaching devoted to old age psychiatry of 15% (range 2.5-25), with a median duration of 6 hours (range 1-14). The findings of the present survey are also better than those recently reported for Australia and New Zealand (O'Connor et al, 1999), where the mean length of old age psychiatry teaching was only 4.2 hours (range 0-7) out of a mean total of 353 hours (1.2%). However, there is no room for complacency about the present state of academic old age psychiatry in the UK and Ireland.…”

Australian general practice and the meeting of needs for mental health care

“…Australian general practice training includes postgraduate training in hospital-or community-based specialist positions,but not necessarily much training beyond the primary medical training in psychiatry, and there is reason for concern about the quality of undergraduate training in the discipline (O'Connor et al 1999 Keks et al 1997;Meadows 1998). However, the competing demands of the GP role and the financial incentives currently in place do not effectively promote the longer consultations or collaborative work practices that are probably necessary for effective mental health care in this setting.In setting out to respond to the needs of people with mental health problems, the GP in Australia may cut a lonely figure at times.Unlike settings, such as the UK, where funding is available to provide nurses, psychologists, or other professionals with counselling skills and the time to give to patients, the Australian universal health care insurance system rebates exclusively for medical inputs.…”

Current Issues in Undergraduate Psychiatry Education: The Findings of a Qualitative Study

“…O'Connor et al 1999); this and a survey of UK medical schools (yet unpublished) indicate that few medical schools directly address the issue of student attitudes in a systematic way. The evidence that students and nonmental health staff hold negative views is strong (e.g.…”

“…The literature on teaching psychiatry is more limited. A lack of consistency in the curriculum of medical schools has been reported in both Japan (Yamauchi, 1998) and Australia (O'Connor et al, 1999), with significant variations in the content and the amount of time devoted to the subject. Both of these studies emphasised the need to make the teaching relevant for future clinical practice.…”