Research by trainees

Membership course or Masters course?

Doctors who are embarking upon general professional training in psychiatry as Senior House Officers (SHOs) are now faced with making a choice between two types of training schemes. The first type offers training on a membership course aimed primarily at teaching the skills required to pass Part 1 and Part 2 of the MRCPsych. The second type offers training on a university course leading to the award of a Masters degree in psychiatry.

Psychiatric trainees' research experiences and activities in the Eastern region of Ireland

A questionnaire addressing various aspects of research activity was administered to 172 trainees in the Eastern region of Ireland. An 80% (n=138) response rate was achieved. While 98% of trainees regarded research activity as important, almost half rated their research opportunities as poor. The commonest reasons cited for doing research included c.v. enhancement, personal interest and consultant pressure. The most frequently reported problems in doing research were time allocation, funding and adequate supervision.

The research option: educators' attitudes

An understanding of research methodology and design including the appropriate use of statistics is considered by the Royal College of Psychiatrists to be an essential part of the education of psychiatrists. The report of the working party for the review of the MRCPsych examination emphasises this by mentioning statistics and research methods as one of the major areas that will be examined as part of the sciences basic to psychiatry (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1985). They point out that over recent years there has been an increase in the number of questions devoted to this subject, and state that this trend should continue. Pre-membership psychiatric trainees are often encouraged to undertake or participate in research (Sims, 1988), but many commence projects which never come to fruition (Hollyman & Abou-Saleh, 1985); lack of adequate supervision seems to be the cause (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1991). The Royal College of Psychiatrists is unique among the Royal Colleges in that it enables candidates for the membership examination to be exempted from the essay paper by submitting a dissertation in advance based on a piece of original research. This is known as the research option.