Consultation-liaison psychiatry in Brazil: Psychiatric residency training

Abstract

A mailing survey assessed consultation-liaison (C-L) service delivery and training among all 23 approved psychiatric residency training programs throughout the country. Twenty questionnaires were returned. Outpatient, inpatient, emergency, and consultation services were present together in 35% of the academic hospitals where residency training took place. Consultation service was provided by 18 (90%) responding programs. Eleven of those reported C-L training as part of their general psychiatry rotation. Nevertheless, educational objectives, weekly case conferences, and didactic seminars were provided by only five of them. The training time varied from 40 to 560 hours, 190 hours on average. The same five programs offered an elective third-year residency training, including liaison with specific units. The results illustrate the migration of academic psychiatric departments from the psychiatric hospital to the general hospital as well as the beginning of C-L training programs in Brazil.