Psychiatric education and training in Arab countries

Abstract

Little is known about psychiatric education among the Arab countries. This article aims at giving an overview on the current situation regarding the availability and quality of psychiatric undergraduate, postgraduate, and specialized training programmes in different Arab countries. A brief questionnaire was developed by the authors to assess the presence and duration of each programme as well as the teaching and assessment methods used. All participating countries reported having undergraduate programmes for medical students, most of them ranging from 3–7 weeks. A variety of teaching methods and objective assessment methods are used to evaluate the students. The duration of psychiatry residency training ranges from 3–5 years in the participating countries. All participating Arab countries have a national board of psychiatry in addition to the Arab board of psychiatry to certify the residency training programmes. Egypt offers a High Diploma, Master, and Doctorate (MD) degrees in psychiatry. Many residency training programmes in some Arab countries are based on and accredited from the American Board of Psychiatry and others are based on the Royal College of Psychiatrists curriculum in the UK. Great progress has been made in the past few years both in undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatric education among the different counties in the Arab world. However, still more effort is needed in order to reach standardization compared with other countries.