FACILITIES FOR PSYCHIATRIC EDUCATION SURVEY OF PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENTS IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS
KENNETH E. APPEL M. D., and
MANUEL M. PEARSON M. D.1
1 Medical School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
1. There is great variation in support of psychiatric education and community service by medical school facilities. This ranges from superb with 17 full-time teachers, 100 to 200 beds in teaching hospitals, one-half to nearly a million dollars for research, and 40 residents at one medical center; to poor with no beds in a teaching hospital, no full-time men on the faculty, no funds for research, 7 to 20 thousand dollars hard money from the medical college to the department of psychiatry, and no residents.
2. Psychiatric education and medical education are not able to keep up with community demands for psychiatric treatment– the newer drugs notwithstanding. The responsibility for this is multiple: a small number of psychiatrists (10,000), much inadequate training in psychiatry for physicians in general, inadequate psychiatric leadership in many schools, deficient budgetary and space resources, negative attitudes toward psychiatry on the part of many medical men and administrators, inordinate claims of results compared with fulfillment in some areas of psychiatry, lack of community demands and support for better psychiatric education in many medical schools.
3. The lack of opportunities in many medical schools for adequate psychiatric training has in part led to: (a) the development of a demand for psychotherapy from non-medical people. (b) the development of psychoanalytic training outside of the medical schools.
4. In many schools, departmental and administrative functions swamp psychiatric leadership and creativity.
5. In many medical schools students are deprived of psychiatric knowledge and training important for the practice of medicine through lopsided medical training which disproportionately emphasizes the physical when a high proportion of the sick population are not classified as physical.
6. There is inadequate communication between departments of psychiatry throughout the country in respect to facilities, budgets, procedures and standards, including specific sources of income for staff members.
7. There is a general lack of information concerning the overall aspects of medical education and the proportionate part of this borne by departments of psychiatry.
8. Medical schools which have participated in this survey now have available to them comparative information regarding their own facilities and those of other departments.
9. Research activities and budgets in departments of psychiatry vary greatly from none to outstanding programs.
10. Finally, this study suggests the desirability that teachers, educational directors and medical school administrators come together for conference to discuss medical education, psychiatric education and training, and community service in which billions of dollars are involved.
