BACKGROUND: To study existing psychiatric medicine residency programs in São Paulo to ensure if they are in compliance with the requirements established by various governing bodies. METHODS: All psychiatric medicine residency programs were studied in 1993 (n=7). The study was conducted with local visits, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires completed by a sample of residents (n=12) and preceptors (n=7) in order to verify the existence of formal training in ambulatory, in-patient procedure, emergency medicine and rotation in neurology and mental health programs, along with a course in psychopharmacology. RESULTS: It was verified that all residency programs accomplished formal training in ambulatory, 71,4% offered training in inpatient procedure, 57% in day-care hospital, 85,7% in emergency medicine. Neurology rotations were observed in 43% of the programs. None had a mental health program or formal and systematized resident performance evaluation. All PRP had non-obligatory training modalities. CONCLUSIONS: None of the psychiatric medicine residency programs studied fulfilled all the obligatory training modalities of normative boards. Representatives of governing bodies, specialist societies and preceptors should define abilities for psychiatric formation, as to obtain standard performance in training in which the learning process might be evaluated objectively.
Residency training; medical education; psychiatry; psychiatric medicine residency
