Psychiatric training for primary care residents: proposed standards

Most of the nation's psychiatric care is provided by primary care physicians, and this trend is expected to continue. Primary care physicians see themselves as poorly trained in psychiatry, and evidence supports a high incidence of missed diagnosis and inadequate or inappropriate treatment. In addition, poor training may underlie the indifference to psychiatric problems often demonstrated by primary physicians. The Ohio Psychiatric Association Foundation has designated an annual award to be given to the primary care program which provides the best psychiatric training in the state, and the psychiatric training directors met to develop criteria for selecting the recipients. The resulting standards emphasize the importance of training which is relevant to a medical care setting, provided by psychiatrists, and supportive of the integration of psychiatric methods into medical care.