Attitudes of medical students in Ireland towards psychiatry: comparison of students from 1994 and 2010

Aims and methodWe assess and compare: (a) the attitudes of final-year medical students in 2010 to their 1994 counterparts; (b) the attitudes of third-year medical students with those of their final-year colleagues; (c) the impact of two different teaching modules on students' attitudes. All students completing the year 3 psychiatry preclinical module and the final-year clinical clerkship were asked to anonymously complete three well-validated attitudinal questionnaires on the first and final day of their module in psychiatry.ResultsThese data indicate that Irish medical students have a positive attitude to psychiatry even prior to the start of their clinical training in psychiatry. This attitude is significantly more positive now than it was in 1994. A positive attitudinal change was brought about only by the final-year psychiatric clerkship. Students who have completed a degree prior to medicine are less likely to express an interest in a career in psychiatry.Clinical implicationsIf we are to address the recruitment difficulties in psychiatry we need to look at innovative and specific ways of translating these positive attitudes into careers in psychiatry.

Experience in community child health as part of training in child and adolescent psychiatry

Careers in psychiatry which commence straight after house jobs are now commonplace and an informal tradition by which future child psychiatrists worked in paediatrics before training in psychiatry is nowadays less rehearsed. Recently, one of the St George's psychiatric registrar rotations arranged a six month post as a community child health doctor (community clinical medical officer) for a psychiatric registrar (JD) who had expressed an interest in child psychiatry as a career but lacked experience in paediatrics.

Everything you ever wanted to know about research but were afraid to ask

Trainees beginning their careers in psychiatry sometimes view research as an additional hurdle that they have to surmount in order to gain senior registrar or consultant status. Conversely, research enthusiasts may see research as an exciting and rewarding activity which enriches and informs clinical practice. The aim of this article is to strike a balance between these two divergent views to help trainees in their selection of the research option most suited to their temperament and aspirations. As a result of our own experiences of full-time and part-time research, in addition to research conducted during full-time clinical posts, we intend this article to be practically rather than theoretically orientated.

The Outside View

I hope that there is no need for me to argue the general case for research in psychiatry, or indeed in any branch of medicine where our knowledge is incomplete—which, of course, means every branch. I do not, of course, imply that research is a necessary component of individual careers in psychiatry; but for the health of the discipline as a whole it is quite essential. The greatest enemies of progress in any branch of science are dogmatically held beliefs; and I believe—not I hope too dogmatically—that the best protection from a dogmatic cast of mind comes from some experience or research. Research is sometimes portrayed as something which may inhibit the taking of necessary decisions—but in my experience indecision has not been peculiar to research-workers, who are, however, less likely to take decisions lightly and on insufficient evidence.