Current issues in undergraduate psychiatry education: the findings of a qualitative study.
BACKGROUND
Recruitment into psychiatry is correlated with the quality of undergraduate medical school teaching programmes and with a commitment of major resources to teaching students. There is an extensive literature related to attitudes towards psychiatry but less on the learning and teaching of psychiatry.


OBJECTIVE
To identify the current issues in undergraduate psychiatric education in the UK for lead teachers at UK medical schools.


METHODS
Semi-structured telephone interviews with psychiatric leads at UK medical schools. A total of 26 participants were interviewed from 23 different medical schools.


RESULTS
Three key areas of problems were identified: issues related to teaching personnel (e.g. conflict of time), teaching resources and impact of teaching on recruitment (e.g. role models; stigma). Eight potential solutions to address the problems were identified and these included improving the quality of teaching, improving the perceived value of the discipline and recruiting teachers.


CONCLUSIONS
There are several problems facing teachers in psychiatry but the teachers are also able to identify solutions which need support from both education and health if they are to be implemented.
Dogra
Nisha
N
The Greenwood Institute of Child Health, University of Leicester, Westcotes House, Westcotes Drive, Leicester, LE3 0QU, UK. nd13@le.ac.uk
Edwards
Ruth
R
Karim
Khalid
K
Cavendish
Susan
S
D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D011287:Prejudice; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education*; D006113:United Kingdom