Opinions on the role of the internship in psychiatric postgraduate education.

Presently in Canada the value of the straight internship in psychiatry and the need for a mandatory rotation in psychiatry during a rotating internship are sources of active debate between the licensing bodies and psychiatric programs and organizations. The importance of the internship as it pertains to the total psychiatric education process has been discussed in a number of research articles from the United States. The conclusions from these studies range from recommendations that rotating internships be discontinued because they may cause empathic blunting among trainees, to strong endorsements of its necessity. The present study examined residents' and residency directors' views of the types of internships in Canada. One hundred and ninety-nine residents and thirteen residency directors completed a questionnaire in 1980. The majority of residents (74.3%) and residency directors (77%) felt that the rotating-mixed internship should be a requirement prior to taking post-graduate training in psychiatry. Most also felt that this type of internship should contain a mandatory one to two months psychiatry rotation. Opinions on the value of the straight internship in psychiatry were mixed for both residents and residency directors. Statistical analyses were carried out comparing the opinions of residents having had a rotating internship versus those having had a straight internship: foreign medical graduates (FMG's) versus Canadian medical graduates (CMG's); and male versus female. As would be expected, the residents who had previously completed a straight internship favoured this type of internship and were more critical of the rotating type.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)