Playing MindGames

Tanya Krolls, M.D., Peter Ly, M.D., and Magdalena Peixoto, M.D., psychiatry residents at the University of Texas-Houston, celebrate following their victory in the Second Annual MindGames competition at APA's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., last month.

The team from Houston competed against teams from Carilion Health Systems in Roanoke, Va., and New York Medical College at Richmond Medical Center.

Onstage before a packed crowd of cheering fans from each training program, the teams answered questions posed by moderator Glen Gabbard, M.D., about psychiatric diagnosis, neuropsychiatry, psychoanalysis, and other topics.

Deborah Hales, M.D., director of APA's Division of Education and Career Development, which sponsored the event, offered congratulations to all the contestants and gave special thanks to Beth Ann Brooks, M.D., Frank Fernandez, M.D., and John Herman, M.D., for serving as judges.

The three teams were finalists in a competition that began in February, when residency teams of three residents each from around the United States and Canada took an online examination consisting of 100 multiple-choice questions with a time limit of 60 minutes.

The questions followed the ABPN Part I content outline. The three top-scoring teams with the fastest posted time received a $5,000 grant from APA to send their teams to the MindGames final round at the annual meeting. Next year's finalists, who will compete at the 2009 annual meeting in San Francisco, will be announced in March at the annual meeting of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training.

Contestants participating this year from Carilion were Jatinder Pal Babbar, M.D., Nina Khachiyants, M.D., and Anjali Varma, M.D. Contestants representing New York Medical College at Richmond were Sarjak Mehta, M.D., Alexander Blaivas, M.D., and Roopa Siddiah, M.D. ▪