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Global Health Training in US Graduate Psychiatric Education

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Abstract

Objective

Global health training opportunities have figured prominently into medical students’ residency program choices across a range of clinical specialties. To date, however, the national scope of global mental health education has not heretofore been systematically assessed. We therefore sought to characterize the distribution of global health training opportunities in US graduate psychiatric education.

Methods

We examined the web pages of all US psychiatry residency training programs, along with search results from a systematic Google query designed to identify global health training opportunities.

Results

Of the 183 accredited US psychiatry residency programs, we identified 17 programs (9.3 %) offering 28 global health training opportunities in 64 countries. Ten psychiatry residency programs offered their residents opportunities to participate in one or more elective-based rotations, eight offered research activities, and six offered extended field-based training. Most global health training opportunities occurred within the context of externally administered, institution-wide initiatives generally available to residents from a range of clinical specialties, rather than within internally administered departmental initiatives specifically tailored for psychiatry residents.

Conclusions

There are relatively few global health training opportunities in US graduate psychiatric education. These activities have a clear role in enhancing mastery of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies, but important challenges related to program funding and evaluation remain.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Regan W. Bergmark, Brian A. Bergmark, and Chaturia Rouse for research assistance.

Disclosure

This study was supported by the Mark and Lisa Schwartz Foundation; the Klingenstein Family Foundation; and the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, through U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) P30AI060354. The authors also acknowledge the following additional sources of salary support: K23MH096620 (Dr. Tsai), the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program (Dr. Tsai), T32MH093310 (Dr. Fricchione), R01AI058736 (Dr. Walensky), and K24MH087227 (Dr. Bangsberg).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Alexander C. Tsai, Gregory L. Fricchione, Rochelle P. Walensky, Courtney Ng, David R. Bangsberg & Vanessa B. Kerry

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Alexander C. Tsai, Gregory L. Fricchione, Rochelle P. Walensky, David R. Bangsberg & Vanessa B. Kerry

  3. Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda

    Alexander C. Tsai & David R. Bangsberg

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  1. Alexander C. Tsai
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  2. Gregory L. Fricchione
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  3. Rochelle P. Walensky
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  4. Courtney Ng
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  5. David R. Bangsberg
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  6. Vanessa B. Kerry
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Correspondence to Alexander C. Tsai.

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Tsai, A.C., Fricchione, G.L., Walensky, R.P. et al. Global Health Training in US Graduate Psychiatric Education. Acad Psychiatry 38, 426–432 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-014-0092-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-014-0092-0

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