NEUROBEHAVIOUR ROUNDS AND INTERDISCIPLINARY EDUCATION IN NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY

Increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary medical treatment and educati on suggests that something valuable has arisen from medical specializa tion beyond the further development of specialty knowledge: an integra tion of specialty knowledge that compliments and extends the integrati ng aspects of the primary care approach to medicine. Several education al models have been described which serve this function. In this paper the authors describe interdisciplinary clinical teaching, and researc h team linking neurology, neuroradiology, psychiatry and neuropsycholo gy. The team provides neurobehavioural evaluations and sponsors monthl y Neurobehaviour Rounds, an interdisciplinary patient conference that is the main formal teaching vehicle for the programme. After the model had been in place for 1 year, eight of nine neurology residents had R esidency In-Service Training Examination scores in behavioural neurolo gy that exceeded their overall average scores. This suggests that enco uraging neurology residents to see patients through the eyes of differ ent specialists may have contributed to improvement in their performan ce on a test of interdisciplinary knowledge. A neurobehavioural progra mme anchored to a formal neurobehaviour conference may encourage inter disciplinary learning within the related disciplines of neurology, neu ropsychology and psychiatry.