Quo vadis, psychiatry? Problems and potential for the future of medical student education in psychiatry.

Psychiatric education occupies a relatively low status level in most academic departments of psychiatry. This problem may be in part because career teachers rarely generate sustained external grant support. Their salaries may be regarded as perpetual drains on the budgets of department chairs. The author explores a possible relationship between the decline in the emphasis on psychiatric education and the decline in the number of medical students entering psychiatric residency programs. Recommendations for improvement in the support of psychiatric education are made that focus on greater accountability of how tuition fees are distributed to support the salaries of faculty educators. The unique role that consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry occupies in psychiatric education, the effects of managed care on C-L psychiatry, and the special problems that C-L psychiatry currently faces with its strong emphasis on non-reimbursable educational activities are discussed. Revitalization of the importance of education in undergraduate medical education is vital for the future of psychiatry.