Seminars are organised on the first Wednesday day of the attachment and for the two subsequent Wednesdays.  They are held at the Wolfson Medical School Building.  Their aim is to give an introduction to the range of topics you are expected to study during the attachment.  They cannot be completely comprehensive and need to be supplemented by personal study and clinically based teaching.  It is essential that you have available a good text and a suggested list is given on Page 6.

Your Undergraduate Tutor should organise weekly case conferences where you will take it in turns to present a case to colleagues and discuss issues of formulation, diagnosis and management.

Most attachments consist of 4 weeks general adult psychiatry and a one week placement in a specialist area.  Specialties available will vary from hospital to hospital.  In some attachments exposure to a sub-specialty may be integrated throughout the 5 weeks.  Your attachment will include a significant amount of community work.  Psychiatry is practised in multidisciplinary settings and you should ensure that you understand the role of other disciplines, including community psychiatric nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists and social workers, in addition to that of the doctors in the team.  In the first week you may wish to spend time talking with patients and getting comfortable with the presentations particular to psychiatry.  After that however, it is important to hone your skills in history taking, mental state examination, diagnosis and management planning by seeing patients regularly and presenting cases to your Educational Supervisor, other doctors on the team and your fellow students.