Training in Medical Psychiatry

Abstract

The “re-medicalization of psychiatr” is a phrase which has been heard frequently in recent years. In using this phrase, psychiatrists are usually referring to the advances in psychopharmacology over the last couple of decades which have led to new medical treatments for many psychiatric disorders. Not all changes in psychiatry however, are consistent with the concept of the re-medicalization of psychiatry. Witness for example, the expansion of free-standing psychiatric hospitals which have taken psychiatrists away from a close association with the rest of their medical colleagues. Re-medicalization of psychiatry should refer to more than just treating psychiatric patients with medication; it should include the ability of a psychiatrist to work in a general medical hospital relating to non-psychiatric physicians and treating patients with combined medical and psychiatric problems. The goal of this paper is to describe a program of training in medical psychiatry which has been developed in the Psychiatry Residency Training Program at the University of California, San Francisco-Fresno Division.