TRAINING RESIDENTS FOR COMMUNITY PSYCHIATRIC PRACTICE - GUIDELINES FOR CURRICULUM-DEVELOPMENT

There is a critical need to recruit and retain more psychiatrists with the required skills and interest to work with seriously mentally ill and/or socially disadvantaged patients within organized programs in co mmunity settings. More residency training programs having the capacity to prepare psychiatrists for community practice can help to meet this need. A consensus definition of the clinical, administrative, consult ative and academic areas of contemporary community psychiatric practic e developed by the American Association of Community Psychiatrists is used to determine the goals of the training curriculum described in th is paper. A comprehensive list of knowledge, skill, and attitude objec tives, as well as suggestions for structuring clinical training assign ments are provided as guidelines for curriculum development.