Psychiatry Residency Census Finds Encouraging News

A nationwide census of psychiatry training programs shows that the number of residents training in psychiatry has stabilized over the past year, but that small changes in the demographics of psychiatry residents could herald important developments in the future.

APA conducts the Internet-based survey, known as the Graduate Medical Education (GME) Track, in collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association. The survey has a number of uses, including the assessment of the workforce in psychiatry.

This year’s census is based on an 83 percent response rate from 493 residency training programs in psychiatry accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for general, child and adolescent, geriatric, addictions, and combined specialty psychiatric training.

The survey showed that there were 52 more psychiatry residents in 2001-02 than in the previous academic year, for a total of 5,766 psychiatry residents in training last year (see chart).

However, between the 1996-97 and the 2000-01 surveys, the field saw a net loss of 362 psychiatry residents, mostly due to the downsizing and merging of psychiatry residency programs.

Sidney Weissman, M.D., a professor and director of psychiatric training at Northwestern University and an expert on workforce issues in psychiatry, did not attach much significance to the one-year gain and said it remains to be seen whether the one-year increase develops into a positive trend.

Weissman pointed to the fact, however, that the characteristics of psychiatry residents shifted slightly. APA’s report contained several charts that included data on international medical graduates (IMGs), and one showed a 2 percent decrease in the proportion of PGY-1 residents who are IMGs over the past year—from 42.8 percent in 2000-01 to 40.8 percent in 2001-02.

Of all of psychiatry’s subspecialty training programs, geriatric psychiatry was the most popular with IMGs in the 2001-02 survey: about 67 percent of geriatric psychiatry fellowships were filled by IMGs. In addition, more than half of those training in consultation/liaison psychiatry (56 percent) were IMGs.

“American psychiatry could not be practiced as it is today without IMGs,” Weissman said.

The 2001-02 survey also showed that women and men continue to be evenly distributed in psychiatry residency training programs. Weissman noted that the proportion of women in psychiatry residency training has been on the upswing for years and said he expects the trend to continue to the point where women will outnumber men in the field.

The results from the 2001-02 Census of Psychiatry Residents is posted on the Web at www.psych.org/med_ed/census_main.cfm. ▪