Teaching psychiatry in an integrated medical curriculum

Objective: Efforts to improve the psychiatric competence of the general medical workforce must include an appraisal of how psychiatry is taught in medical schools, As a contribution to this appraisal a description is given of psychiatric education in the innovative undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Newcastle. Method: An outline of the features which characterise medical education at Newcastle is provided and the way in which the teaching of psychiatry is organised within this framework is presented. Results: The characteristics of the Newcastle undergraduate program in psychiatry include its integration with teaching in other clinical and basic science disciplines, continuity throughout the entire five years of the course, and the emphasis on skills acquisition and their assessment. Conclusions: The relative merits and disadvantages of the Newcastle approach to undergraduate psychiatry education are presented and the problem of assessing the effectiveness of this approach by outcomes measurement, particularly of integrated competencies and their application in general medical settings, is discussed.