TUTORIAL: A USEFUL WAY TO TEACH PSYCHIATRY TO SENIOR MEDICAL STUDENTS
PETER E. SIFNEOS M.D.1
1 Director, Psychiatric Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.
The psychiatry course as given to senior Harvard Medical School students at the Massachusetts General Hospital has been briefly described, with special emphasis placed on the use of intensive individual tutorial.
The tutor-student relationship is dynamic. It has education as its main goal and involves a transference counter-transference that must be recognized early by the tutor, handled with subtlety, and resolved successfully by the end of one month in order to facilitate learning. It also offers both the tutor and the student a unique opportunity for learning. The tutor must be careful, however, that tutorial should not devolve into psychotherapy.
Thus, from our staff experience and student ratings, tutorial is considered a most useful way to teach psychiatry to senior medical students.
