A consultation-liaison psychiatry clinical clerkship

Toward the goal of increasing the relevance of clinical psychiatry to the future practice of medicine, a full-time psychiatry clerkship has been developed on the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Service at the University of Vermont. This new Psychiatry Clinical clerkship was begun on a pilot basis in January, 1973, and made fully operational in January, 1974. It uses the problem oriented medical record system and the audit of student performance as basic instructional tools. A description of the background or curricular matrix of the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Clinical Clerkship (CLPCC) is followed by an outline of the rotation's goals, and evaluation and educational strategies as developed over 2 years. Certain performance outcomes are reported for the 1 year of full operation. These outcomes are parameters of student performance on several standardized measures applied to all Psychiatry Clerkship students. The CLPCC students seem to be at least as adequate as students on all other clerkship rotations, in terms of their knowledge of psychopharmacology, their use of the Problem Oriented Record, their ability to assess psychosocial problems, and their ability to define a psychosocial treatment plan. Further, the CLPCC students are statistically significantly more positive about their rotation as an educational experience compared with students on other psychiatry rotations. While further evaluation measures are planned to compare the CLPCC students with those who have had one of the several traditional clinical clerkship experiences in psychiatry, our experience to date would indicate that the CLPCC is a viable alternative to traditional clerkships on psychiatric services and one that may enable a greater application of psychiatric principles to the practice of medicine.