Summer schools, societies and celebrities are being used to tackle the recruitment crisis in psychiatry.
The specialty is struggling to recruit UK-trained graduates. The proportion of UK nationals among the graduates sitting the college’s membership examinations has fallen from about 20% in the last decade to under 6% for one paper last year.
Prof Rob Howard, the college’s dean, said: “Psychiatry is an immensely unpopular career choice among UK graduates. Most think it’s weird and different from the rest of medicine.”
Prof Howard said psychiatrists have failed to connect with undergraduates through clinical teaching and the speciality doesn’t have enough presence within the foundation programme.
Changing how medical graduates perceive the specialty is priority for the college and a hot topic of debate at last week’s annual conference. For undergraduates, the college has created psychiatry societies in medical schools – with currently 800 members – linked up with newsletters and events.
It’s also trying to develop a programme of 15 summer schools a year, and launches its first at the Institute of Psychiatry, in London, in July. There were 97 applications for 30 places.
For foundation programme trainees, the college would like to see longer, four month placements in psychiatry. And Prof Howard wants to create more opportunities for trainees to experience psychiatry through combined placements with other specialties, for example orthopaedics.
Even celebrities are being called on to help recruit. Stephen Fry recently twittered “his readers” – reportedly half a million – on behalf of the college. He said: “Just had dinner at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Real recruitment crisis. Come on med students - choose psychiatry! So needed.”
Prof Howard said that while vacancies were being successfully filled by overseas doctors, he was concerned that they could encounter communication problems and miss cultural nuances.
“The overseas doctors are all appointable,” he said. “But it is not good enough to fill jobs with just apppointable people. It’s not fair on patients and families – they deserve better.”
Tags: psychiatry, Recruitment
