Global Health Training in US Graduate Psychiatric Education

Abstract

Global health training opportunities have figured prominently into medical students' residency program choices across a range of clinical specialties. To date, however, the national scope of global mental health education has not heretofore been systematically assessed. We therefore sought to characterize the distribution of global health training opportunities in US graduate psychiatric education. We examined the web pages of all US psychiatry residency training programs, along with search results from a systematic Google query designed to identify global health training opportunities. Of the 183 accredited US psychiatry residency programs, we identified 17 programs (9.3%) offering 28 global health training opportunities in 64 countries. Ten psychiatry residency programs offered their residents opportunities to participate in one or more elective-based rotations, eight offered research activities, and six offered extended field-based training. Most global health training opportunities occurred within the context of externally administered, institution-wide initiatives generally available to residents from a range of clinical specialties, rather than within internally administered departmental initiatives specifically tailored for psychiatry residents. There are relatively few global health training opportunities in US graduate psychiatric education. These activities have a clear role in enhancing mastery of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies, but important challenges related to program funding and evaluation remain.