Documenting a shortage of psychiatrists: the repair shop model.

The author presents a model for documenting a shortage of psychiatrists. The model employs efficiency, work load, and work time to determine numbers of psychiatrists needed for a hospital setting. Survey data collected from 900 psychiatrists were used to quantify these variables and to identify possible determinants of variation. Differences in residency training were associated with differences in efficiency. As presented, the model is incomplete and cannot be used to explicity define manpower requirements. The author's discussion expands the model and focuses on the complexity of documenting a true shortage or surplus of psychiatrists.