The community of academic psychiatry has much to learn by listening to our trainees. The Learner’s Voice papers are brief reflections that center around the experience of learning psychiatry or becoming a psychiatrist.

The USA has a psychiatrist workforce problem. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that within 10 years, we will have a deficit of 20,000 to 30,000 psychiatrists. These numbers only speak about the general shortage of psychiatrists for providing clinical care; they do not speak to other aspects of the shortage such as in academic psychiatry or in subspecialties. The paper “Intervene or Innovate: A Dilemma for Psychiatrists-In-Training” [1] provides a window into a major impact of this shortage on trainees—that the career choices our residents and fellows make might be based not so much on personal preferences alone but also by their observation of unmet clinical needs and the resulting moral dilemma: should they pursue innovation and research or only practice clinical psychiatry and help patients who are currently not being helped? As educators, we need to be aware of the possible impact of the shortage of psychiatrists on our trainees and address it accordingly.