Community psychiatry tracks for residents: a review of four programs

Many psychiatry residency graduates end up practicing at least in part in community settings. However, declining funding and other issues prevent many residency programs from offering robust community psychiatry training to all of their residents. Accordingly, some residency programs have developed Community Psychiatry Tracks, with the goal of developing future leaders in public sector psychiatry. We cataloged US psychiatry residency programs offering Community Psychiatry Tracks by reviewing the literature and surveying training directors and members of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists. Authors from each of the four programs found to be actively offering such tracks describe their track curricula, from which we elucidated common and variable elements as well as strengths and weaknesses and then make recommendations for other programs wishing to start a track. A Community Psychiatry Track preliminarily appears to be a well-received way to offer enhanced Community Psychiatry training to interested residents, to recruit medical students to residency programs, to offer opportunities for collaboration between residents and faculty members, and to expand opportunities for scholarly work by residents.