Geriatric psychiatry was officially recognized as a subspecialty by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) in 2009, with the first RCPSC exam written in 2013 (Andrew and Shea, 2010). The unique mental health needs of Canadians’ seniors requires geriatric psychiatrists trained to address them (Herrmann, 2004), but current rates of recruitment in informal fellowship programs have been inadequate (Bragg et al., 2012). One hope of subspeciality recognition was to increase recruitment in Canada, but there have been some challenges in accrediting psychiatrists already caring for older adults. Many currently practicing geriatric psychiatrists have elected to take the Royal College examination, with >120 graduates in the first year, 2013, but others have been more ambivalent. In this letter, we perform a preliminary exploration of the prevalence and correlates of disinterest in completing the RCPSC geriatric psychiatry examination.
Practice eligible route for certification in geriatric psychiatry: why some Canadian psychiatrists are disinterested in writing the RCPSC subspeciality examination?