Am J Psychiatry 1980; 137:428-431
Copyright © 1980 by American Psychiatric Association
Choosing psychiatry: the importance of psychiatric education in medical school
AC Nielsen
Because of the recent decline in the number of U.S. medical graduates
choosing to specialize in psychiatry, it is important to reexamine the
process of how a student chooses a psychiatric career. The author explores
the influence of medical school psychiatric education on the subsequent
choice of a psychatric career. The quality of medical school education was
measured roughly by priority scores assigned during National Institutes of
Mental Health peer review of grant applicatons from medical schools across
the United States. Priority scores correlated positively (.17 to .29) with
the percentage of each school's graduates entering psychiatric training.
The author discusses the implications of these correlations.
