Geriatric Psychiatry: Training Guidelines and Their Application

Geriatric psychiatry is now a mandatory part of psychiatric residency education in Canada. Educational requirements in geriatric psychiatry were updated by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1988, and guidelines were developed in more detail in 1989 by the Section on Geriatric Psychiatry of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA). These guidelines are presented here together with a survey, conducted in the fall of 1991, of all 16 Canadian psychiatry residency programs. Thirteen of the training centres now require residents to have a formal rotation in geriatric psychiatry, generally three months in length. Residents are exposed to elderly patients in other services, such as consultation/liaison, but these services may not include formal teaching in geriatric psychiatry. Most programs have a seminar series in geriatric psychiatry and have training guidelines similar to those of the CPA. However, it is not clear how closely these are being followed, since it was felt in almost one-third of all programs that there was an insufficient number of teachers to fulfill the training requirements. In addition, a number of training directors felt that the objectives were too comprehensive to be met in the three month period. Earlier studies in the field are reviewed, implications of the current findings are discussed, and suggestions are made for further research.