Senior medical students' perceptions of the psychiatric clerkship.

The psychiatric clerkship serves the unique role of being the basic psychiatric experience for all physicians. The authors surveyed 680 senior medical students (representing a mean of 32.4% of the students at 15 American medical schools) to obtain information on their experiences and perceptions of this clerkship. These students' perceptions raise potentially serious questions as to the effectiveness of the clerkship in meeting educational needs. The medical students perceived the clerkship as essential for their future careers but considered it easy compared with other clerkships. This perception of easiness has implications both for recruiting psychiatrists and for how practicing nonpsychiatric physicians view psychiatry.