Use of a general medical setting to teach medical students about neurosis

A new way of teaching medical students about minor psychiatric illnesses is described. Psychiatric morbidity on general medical wards was identified, using medical students to administer the screening instrument to all routine admissions and interview possible cases. This was linked to a weekly teaching round in the same setting conducted by a psychiatrist. Advantages of this method of teaching were (1) it increased the overall numbers of patients clerked by our students during their psychiatric clerkship; (2) it increased the number of cases of neurosis seen by students as compared with psychotic illnesses; and (3) it related teaching on psychiatric conditions to settings where most students would eventually practise. The aim was both to increase the students' factual knowledge about minor psychiatric illnesses as encountered in these settings, and to improve their skills at identifying and treating such illnesses. An attempt was made to measure the effectiveness of this teaching method. All students showed an improvement in test scores, whether taught under the new regime or not, but it proved impossible to distinguish those taught on medical wards from those taught primarily in psychiatric wards. The implications of this finding are discussed. There was uniformly positive feedback from the students who took part in the study.