The psychiatrist as teacher in primary care residency training: the first year

Increasing development of postgraduate primary care training programs to meet manpower needs is supported by flexibility in the Boards of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics to include experience in psychiatry; with this change, liaison psychiatrists will become progressively more involved and closely integrated into such training. This report outlines the first year experience of a psychiatrist in one innovative three year program in pediatrics and medicine, and describes some common problems and issues, along with teaching goals and some developing methodologies. Although the number of trainees in this first year cohort is small, preliminary results reported by a feedback component of an independent evaluation team attached to the program suggest that the interns are receptive to the psychiatric input and that they consider the initial contribution by psychiatry to have as much usefulness to their training in primary care as the more traditional pediatric and medical components.