Psychiatry Residents as Teachers: Can a Standardized Lecture to Medicine Residents Improve Knowledge and Self-Efficacy Regarding Capacity and Legal Holds?

Internal medicine residents cite lack of psychiatric knowledge/training as a barrier to providing adequate patient care (Hemming and Loeb). While family medicine programs have a behavioral health rotation built into their residency, most internal medicine programs in the United States do not. Gaining knowledge surrounding psychiatric issues during early years of training can allow internal medicine residents to function more efficiently during senior experiences when managing care teams. Our aim was to observe if a standardized curriculum can improve knowledge amongst internal medicine residents in regards to assessing capacity and managing involuntary holds (two common reasons for consultation at LAC+USC hospital). Internal medicine interns (PGY1) were provided with a one-hour lecture created by psychiatry residents Participation was voluntary and instruction was provided at the LAC+USC Medical Center during didactic hours. Primary outcomes were 1) increase in self-efficacy of internal medicine residents and 2) increase in knowledge base surrounding the above two topics. On post-exam analysis, we found self-efficacy to be significantly improved in all domains. Knowledge base showed increase on post-exam but was not significant at p value of <0.5. This sutdy supports the notion that a curriculum created by psychiatry residents can be utilized in subsequent years of training and applied to other disciplines for the purposes of increased collaborative care in a county setting.

Author(s): Kelly Jones

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