Welcome to your 4 week psychiatry attachment!

We hope that you will enjoy this varied block, as the main aim is to give you opportunities to get confident conducting a psychiatric interview and mental state examination in patients with mental illness and/or disorder. You will spend time attached to the mental health teams across Tayside, and have the chance to meet in-patients and out-patients in a variety of settings. There will be a couple of tutorials through each week, and different options to see specialist clinics and Electroconvulsive Therapy. We will check your progress with a verbal case presentation at weeks 2 and 4, and expect a written case discussion by the end of the block. The marks for your second case presentation and written case will be used to grade you for the block. You are also required to hand in a timetable of all of the learning activities you have attended during your 4 weeks. 

For all of the details about the attachments (including a range of extra resources, the study guide, assessment examples and marking scheme) please see the other parts of this site. If you have any questions in advance of your block then get in touch with Dr Christopher Pell or Hilary Freed. Once you have started the block you will work with a main consultant each week who will be able to oversee your learning and advise of any tweaks or changes to your timetables.  

Abbreviated Block Objectives

• To become proficient at taking and presenting a full psychiatric history from a range of patients in different settings
• To be able to assess and describe a patient’s mental state in a comprehensive and structured way
• To present two verbal case presentations to your consultant
• To understand the different specialisms within psychiatry by spending times in a variety of settings
• To understand the varying roles of the multidisciplinary team by shadowing doctors, community psychiatric nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists or psychologists
• To appreciate the complexity and impact of mental disorder on the lives of patients through writing up a full case discussion.