TEACHING PSYCHIATRY IN THE MEDICAL SCHOOL GENERAL HOSPITAL

Abstract

The 1932 survey of sixty-eight medical schools in the United States and Canada, made by Ebaugh 1 for the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, indicated that 42 per cent of schools had not, at that time, developed clinical facilities for general psychiatric teaching, and that only eight schools had developed psychiatric liaison with the clinical departments of the general hospital. Unquestionably, many schools, since this survey was made, have begun developing more adequate facilities for training the medical student and intern in the diagnosis and treatment of the relatively large number of psychiatric cases commonly coming to the general practicing physician (generally estimated at from 35 to 75 per cent of the general physician's patient load). Suffice it to say that, since the present-day trend of modern medicine is toward a more firm coalescence of the fundamental scientific principles, clinical procedures and teaching methods of psychobiology and psychiatry with those