Psychiatric impairment in medical students

This retrospective study of 217 medical students (at one school over an eight-year period) who had sought psychiatric consultation and treatment was designed to verify earlier findings about medical students' psychiatric impairment and to investigate other, more recently highlighted issues. The authors hypothesized that (1) more of the women would be seen for psychiatric consultation; (2) overall, the problems and diagnoses of the students would differ according to gender and academic class; (3) the women would show more evidence of role strain; (4) the women would remain in treatment longer; and (5) for all students, the average length of treatment would be relatively brief. The results of this study indicate that more of the women requested psychiatric consultation; that differences along gender lines regarding chief complaints and psychiatric diagnoses were not significant; and that the women revealed more direct and subtle evidence of role strain but did not remain in treatment longer than the men. The date are discussed in terms of the development and implementation of educational programs that attempt to prevent some of the psychiatric impairments of physicians.