Recruitment and training of child and adolescent psychiatry residents from pediatrics.

Abstract

This article describes a 21-year experience of recruiting and training child and adolescent psychiatry residents with pediatric backgrounds. Three grounds of physicians are compared: those with previous training in general psychiatry alone, those with previous training in both general psychiatry and pediatrics, and those with previous training in pediatrics alone. Residents with pediatric backgrounds compared favorably with those with general psychiatry training. Those with only pediatric training were not only able to successfully complete the residency, but also the majority entered the field of child psychiatry. The findings support accepting residents directly from pediatrics as a viable pathway into child psychiatry.