Welcome to the October 2009 e-newsletter of
the Psychiatric Trainees’ Committee (PTC) of the Royal College of
Psychiatrists.
Contents:
- Editorial
- Psychiatric
trainees in Iraq
- Psychotherapy survey
- European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees
forum
- Core
trainees’ guide to teaching
- Modular credentialing
- PTC Newsletter editorial team
1) Editorial
Clare Oakley, Chair, PTC
The Dean, Professor Rob
Howard, recently visited Iraq and met some of the psychiatric
trainees there. He attended the PTC meeting to tell us about how
inspiring the psychiatric trainees he had met were and what
extraordinary things they were achieving despite the challenges of
recent years. The Iraqi trainees are keen to make links with
psychiatric trainees here in the UK and the PTC is delighted to
facilitate this. We have established a Google group as a way of
exchanging ideas and discussing psychiatric training. We are keen
for as many trainees as possible to be involved in this group, so
please do join. You can also read in this newsletter
about what it is like to be a psychiatric trainee in
Iraq.
The PTC continues to
address important training issues on your behalf. I recently spoke
at an event at the College about modular credentialing attended by
Chief Executive Officers of mental health Trusts. The PTC is
opposed to modular credentialing pre-CCT and the reasons why are
outlined in this
newsletter. I was also invited to
speak at the College’s medical education conference and used this
opportunity to highlight the importance of out of hours working as
outlined in the PTC position paper that
was accepted by the College last year. We have also raised concerns
within the College about lack of access to psychotherapy training
for core trainees and this has been acknowledged as an important
issue by the Heads of School. They are
conducting a survey to obtain further
information and I would encourage you to complete it
so that this situation can be addressed.
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2) Psychiatric trainees in Iraq
Sami Al Bedri, Baghdad Teaching
Hospital
I am an Iraqi Board trainee in Psychiatry in my final
(fourth) year of training. There are approximately forty
psychiatric trainees in Iraq. During the past four years of
studying psychiatry in Iraq we, the trainees, have seen many
changes, all of which were positive. The most important change was
the availability of the internet which was not previously
available. We started to use the internet to communicate and to
gain access to journals, a thing that we enjoyed and which made us
more eager to know about how psychiatry is practiced abroad.
Being accepted as a
trainee in the Iraqi Board of Psychiatry is very easy: you just
apply and you are accepted. This is in marked contrast to Boards of
other specialties. The reason is that, in Iraq, psychiatry (and
forensic medicine) has the lowest number of doctors attracted to it
(each year about 10 doctors apply and are accepted).
Once you are accepted as
a Board trainee, you have to pass four years of psychiatric
training. The first year consists of four month placements in
neurology, medicine and general psychiatry, including a weekly
lecture in basic neurosciences and neurology. After the first year,
trainees should pass the first examinations on basic neurosciences,
neurology, medicine and psychopathology (60 MCQs + 5 essay
questions). The second year is the best since you only train in
general psychiatry. In the third year, we train in forensic,
child and addiction psychiatry and we produce a thesis. The final
year, like the second year, is training only in general psychiatry.
Following this training, one would be approved to enter the final
examination which is in four parts: an MCQ paper, an essay paper,
clinical examinations and oral examinations. During all four years
of training every centre should undertake two academic activities
per week; one is a case presentation and the other is a journal
club (we love the Advances in Psychiatric Treatment).
Living in Baghdad is not
that regular since you may face things in your daily life that you
didn’t expect at all, so sometimes we don’t stick to our agenda.
We, Iraqi psychiatric trainees who accepted, and loved, our
stigmatized career in our traumatised Baghdad, would be very glad
to know about training in psychiatry abroad. We are very excited
about the e-mail group that will include trainees of the RCPsych
and the Iraqi Board of Psychiatry. We would really value the
opportunity to exchange ideas and impressions about psychiatry and
its training in different places and cultures.
Please join the email group.
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3) Psychotherapy survey
Hugo de Waal, Head of School, Eastern
Deanery and Chess Denman, Chair, Education Committee, Psychotherapy
Faculty
This survey aims to
collect very basic data on the national state of play in relation
to the acquisition of psychotherapy competencies by trainees at
core training level (ie CT/ST 1-3). It does this by asking you, the
trainees, about the training experience you have had in
psychotherapy, and how you have been or have not been able to
provide evidence to ARCP panels that you have acquired the relevant
competencies, as outlined in the
College’s Guidelines on Psychotherapy
Training.
For the purposes of this survey an “experience of delivering
psychotherapy” is defined as a supervised period of individual,
group or family psychological treatment, delivered by the trainee
over eight or more timetabled sessions to a patient with any
psychiatric diagnosis.
You can complete the survey (which will take only a few
minutes) by clicking on this link.
Your contribution will be of great assistance to the Heads of
Schools in getting an idea of your views and in turn this will aid
in their decisions on how to strengthen psychotherapy training in
their particular jurisdiction. The survey will run until the 31
December 2009.
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4) European
Federation of Psychiatric Trainees forum
The UK hosted the annual European Federation of
Psychiatric Trainees (EFPT) forum this year. The EFPT is a
federation of national psychiatric trainee organisations across
Europe. The PTC has been a member of EFPT since its inception
sixteen years ago. The forum was held at Clare College in Cambridge
between the 8 and the 11 July 2009. It was attended by eighty
trainees from thirty-one countries and was a fabulous opportunity
to share experiences and ideas about psychiatric training across
Europe. Various topics of common interest were discussed, including
workplace-based assessments, research and psychotherapy. Next
year’s forum will be held in Croatia.
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5) Core trainees’ guide to teaching
As part of the College’s
recruitment strategy, the PTC have produced a guide to teaching
medical students and foundation doctors aimed at core trainees. It
is recognised that core trainees can play a crucial role in
teaching, particularly clinical or ‘bedside’ teaching on the wards,
in clinic and on call. However, core trainees often do not receive
any formal training in teaching methods. This practical guide
provides tips and advice to help you improve your teaching skills.
There are also suggestions for creating a log of teaching sessions
for your portfolio and a framework for collecting student feedback.
The guide can be downloaded by clicking on this
link.
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6) Modular credentialing
There has been discussion
about the introduction of modular credentialing which, according to
Lord Darzi’s ‘A High Quality Workforce’ document, is “the formal
accreditation of capabilities at defined points within the medical
career pathway that takes into account knowledge, capabilities,
behaviour, attitudes and experience”
The Academy of Medical
Royal Colleges trainees’ group has produced a
position statement on their website focussing
mainly on their concerns about pre-CCT modular credentialing.
Post-CCT modular credentialing has also been suggested and seems to
have more support from various specialties.
The PTC is opposed to
pre-CCT modular credentialing as we are concerned that it would
undermine the value of the CCT. There are already various
mechanisms in place, such as the curriculum, WPBA, the exams and
ARCP which should be able to demonstrate a trainee’s competencies.
The value of having additional ‘credentials’ is therefore
unclear.
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7) PTC newsletter editorial team
Clare Oakley, Chair
Elena Baker-Glenn, Vice Chair and Website
Editor
Mark Tarn, Honorary Secretary
Arpan Dutta, Deputy Website Editor
Back to trainees'
home page
Page last updated 29
September 2009 by E Baker-Glenn