Consultation-liaison psychiatry as a subspecialty: A Canadian survey

In Canada, in recent years, there has been increased interest in the issue of subspecialization in psychiatry. One hundred and forty-four members of the Section on Psychosomatic Medicine of the Canadian Psychiatric Association responded to a survey about their opinions on teaching, training, continuing education, and designation of consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry as a subspecialty. Fifty-five percent of respondents agreed that C-L psychiatry should receive designation as a psychiatric subspecialty, 35% were opposed, and 10% did not give an opinion. The results also indicated that formal teaching in C-L psychiatry has increased, particularly over the past 20 years; that training in C-L psychiatry is believed by many to have been inadequate, regardless of when the training took place; and recent graduates were more likely than psychiatrists graduating more than 10 years ago to agree that C-L psychiatry should be designated as a subspecialty. Psychiatrists who devote more of their time to the care of patients with combined medical and psychiatric illness were also more likely to favor subspecialty designation. Factors unique to Canada that may influence attitudes toward psychiatric subspecialization include the number and geographic distribution of psychiatrists, their educational background, and governmental funding priorities.     

Toward increased psychiatric presence in community mental health centers.

The presence of psychiatrists in community mental health centers has diminished in recent years, especially in centers that are non-hospital-based and that are located in rural or disadvantaged urban settings. The decrease in psychiatric leadership in the centers is particularly notable. Factors contributing to the trend include lower salaries than in the private sector, a decrease in the number of patients with severe mental disorders coming to the centers, and the impact of a decrease in specialized training programs in community psychiatry. The authors suggest several incentives to increase psychiatric presence in the centers, including developing staffing standards as a condition of funding, giving psychiatrists time to do research and evaluation and to teach, and increasing the medical involvement of centers through links with general hospitals, private psychiatric hospitals, and medical schools.     

Current status of general hospital psychiatry in Japan.

The current status of general hospital psychiatry was overviewed to clarify the progress and the stagnation. To facilitate well-organized community psychiatric care, general hospital psychiatry should play a central role in psychiatry. The policy makers of the Japanese mental health system should place a special emphasis on general hospital psychiatric beds to further process of shifting from a hospital based to a community based psychiatry system. It is also necessary that general hospital psychiatry should become more aggressively involved in community psychiatry, e.g. emergency psychiatry. Consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry has been quickly developed and become one of the main psychiatric fields. For further development, a multidisciplinary team approach with co-medical staffs is necessary to supply efficient and effective care to medically ill patients. A proactive model of C-L care rather than a doctors' needs model should also be considered. Well designed research evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of C-L activities in medical settings needs to be done to increase funding to general hospital psychiatry. This research evidence would also lead to a more fully integrated general hospital psychiatry into the practice of medicine and catch up with the ongoing medical reform in Japan.     

Some resolutions in difficulties of postgraduate psychiatric education in Japan]

1. Board Certification System of Psychiatry There was a heated debate about "Postgraduate Psychiatric Education and Board Certification of Psychiatry" in the annual meeting for the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology held in Nagasaki in 1968 and in Kanazawa in 1969. The oppositions of young psychiatrists were as follows; 1) Issues of low cost of medical expense as government politics, social protect politics from psychiatric patients, and improper management of patients in mental hospitals should be dealt before making Board Certification System of Psychiatry. 2) Management of the Society of Psychiatry and Neurology dissatisfies many psychiatrists. Board Certification Systems started in many medical societies from 1969 to 1987. Main nine departments except psychiatry started the system. In 1987, the Japan Association of Chairmen of Department of Psychiatry of Medical Colleges (JACDPM) proposed a program for a postgraduate course. The Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology (JSPN) formed the Committee on Psychiatric Education in 1987 and Working Group on Accreditation Program (WGAP) in 1991 under the Committee of Psychiatric Education. After intensive discussions on the Board certification, the WGAP reported a summary of their discussions in 1994. The essence of the WGAP recommended model for the Board of Association was as follows: Minimal Requirements Outline Training Period--three years psychiatric training after two years primary care experience by rotation through other departments. Field of Training--WGAP recommended that post-graduate training should be given at different kinds of institutes such as the department of psychiatry in medical schools, mental hospitals, out-patient mental clinics, community experiences in rehabilitation, day care, social clubs and health centers. Assessment--both oral examination and case reports are requested for evaluation and board certification. Re-evaluation every five years is required. However, there have been the following opinions and the Board Certification System has not been realized. 1) Making improvement in mental hospital is more important than starting Post-graduate Training and Organization for Board Certification of Psychiatry System (PTOBCP). 2) Starting PTOBCP makes professors in department of psychiatry in medical colleges give great power to suppress the right of personal management. 3) Financial support for postgraduate trainee and trainer is insufficient. Medical and psychiatric situations have changed from 2001 to 2002. 1) A neutral organization instead of academic societies will make Board Certification System in each department in the future. 2) Postgraduate educational rotation system (two years) will start in 2004. 3) Advertisement of being certificated by the Board has been possible. In recent situation, necessity for making of PTOBCP is increasing and many members of JSPN long to make it. In the 98th annual meeting, 2002 it was decided to make PTOBCP. 2. Post-graduate mandatory education system including psychiatry Recently, it was legally decided that post-graduate education for two years should be mandatory for every medical doctor who has passed a national board from 2004. Furthermore, psychiatric training should be mandatory for every rotating resident. The period of psychiatric training is one, two or three months, which depends upon each teaching hospital. It is epoch-making that every resident should receive psychiatric training, however, in other words, it means that psychiatric education in Japan will be re-evaluated through such a new training system.     

Liaison psychiatry: A model for medical care on a general hospital psychiatric unit

Liaison psychiatry is traditionally practiced on the medical and surgical floors of the general hospital. The need for liaison psychiatry on the inpatient psychiatric unit as opposed to its usual setting was realized when the medical care requirements of hospitalized psychiatric patients was assessed. In many general hospitals this medical care is provided by a psychiatrist in consultation with medical and surgical colleagues. Over a three-year period at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont 563 medical/surgical consultations were provided to the inpatient psychiatric unit. To utilize these consultations most effectively, the role best suited for the psychiatrist was that of liaison-consultee. Case examples are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of employing liaison skills in the treatment of somatic problems on the inpatient psychiatric unit. The educational implications of learning the liaison model in this context are discussed.     

General hospital psychiatry from the perspective of medical economics

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry from the perspective of medical economics, by comparing a part-time and full-time psychiatric department. One full-time (5 days per week) psychiatrist began work at a general hospital (GH-A), and one part-time (once per week) psychiatrist had been working at another general hospital (GH-B). Both general hospitals are teaching hospitals of the same size. The number of patients and the medical reimbursements were investigated each month and compared. This study demonstrated that the establishment of C-L psychiatry was economically profitable in contrast with what was the common belief among general hospital administrators. Also, the differences in the total number of patients (GH-A: GH-B = 500:35-50 patients/month) and the total reimbursement (GH-A: GH-B = 3 million: 2-300000 yen/month) was not explained by the number of working days (GH-A: GH-B = 5:1 day/week). The full-time model of C-L psychiatry has also indirect effects (i.e. educational and relieving effects) on the hospital staff. Promoting the establishment of C-L psychiatry requires many evidence-based studies that demonstrate the necessity for C-L psychiatry and can directly persuade hospital directors.     

Alcohol and drug problems: a challenge to consultation-liaison psychiatry

Although alcohol and drug problems are prevalent in the population at large and among patients in general hospitals, they have not been a major concern of consultation-liaison psychiatry. A setting in which all psychiatric consultations are directed to such problems, the Clinical Institute of the Addiction Research Foundation, is described, and parameters of its consultation experience are explored. It is suggested that dealing with alcohol and drug problems should become an integral aspect of consultation-liaison psychiatry. Such a development may prove to be especially fruitful in teaching a comprehensive approach to patient care.     

Psychosomatic clinic or pain clinic: Which is more viable?

Outpatient consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry has been beset with problems concerning funding and patient acceptance. Though the consultation, liaison, and referral clinic models for outpatient C-L psychiatry each offer advantages, they have not conquered these fundamental problems. This paper introduces the multidisciplinary pain clinic as an alternative means of addressing somatic symptoms and psychiatric disorders in an ambulatory medical population. The multidisciplinary pain clinic offers advantages in terms of reimbursement, patient acceptance, and opportunities for interdisciplinary research. The pain clinic model has disadvantages that include administration by departments other than psychiatry, traditional location in a tertiary care hospital, and limitations to who can be treated. However, it offers a place where both the physiological and psychological aspects of somatic symptoms may be addressed. The pain clinic nurtures the priorities and goals of primary care for a patient population whose complexities may outstrip the resources of a single primary care physician.     

Development of consultation-liaison psychiatry in The Netherlands. Its social psychiatric heritage

Dutch consultation-liaison psychiatry (C-L psychiatry) has followed a developmental line separate from the American system. First, C-L psychiatry in the Netherlands has been less influenced by psychosomatic medicine than by social psychiatry. Second, the presence of psychiatric units in general hospitals that appear to be correlated with the growth of C-L psychiatry in the United States occurred later in the Netherlands. Third, little government support for clinical care, research, and especially for training has been available to Dutch psychiatry. Consequently, there has been little recent financial pressure on C-L psychiatry from reduced government support, as occurred in the United States. Finally, the relationship between primary and secondary health care in the Netherlands allows C-L psychiatry to have a direct impact on several inpatient and ambulatory levels in the health care chain. A nationally accepted database form for the computerized registration of the Psychiatric Consultations at the eight university hospitals and ten other general hospitals is currently in use. To facilitate standardization and recording the psychiatric consultation process, the Netherlands Consortium for C-L psychiatry (NCCP) was formed.     

Addressing psychiatric education in Latin America: Challenges and opportunities

This article is about the psychiatric educational components in the field of psychiatry. Currently the training and educational objectives focus on five major areas: undergraduate education (medical students); graduate education (psychiatric residents); psychiatric education for primary care physicians, as well as physicians in other medical specializations (psychosomatic training); public health and public education at large, and patient and family education, and the promotion of ‘mental health’ at a community level. Given the strong globalization process observed in all regions of the world in the past two or three decades, it is very important for Latin America to constantly review and update its psychiatric and behavioural sciences curriculum across all medical institutions and universities of the continent. New methods of teaching and novel approaches to education in the field of psychiatry are currently based on models that are also in use in other parts of the world, especially in the USA. Boards of certification for psychiatrists are being implemented all over the continent. Sound certification guarantees that the professional has followed and passed an educational training plan to make him/her qualified to start practising the profession. The future of psychiatric training will be closely bound to the future of the practice of psychiatry, and will have to get ahead of the challenges the specialism will face during the next decades.     

Psychiatrie de liaison : quelle psychiatrie pour quelles liaisons ?

The term of “liaison psychiatry” is used for a wide range of medical practices. The liaison psychiatry is the exercise of psychiatry in general hospitals, with patients hospitalised in somatic care departments: full time hospitalisation, day-limited stays, emergency units, and outpatient's consultations. It also aims to help caregivers and medical institutions. Liaison psychiatry works in collaboration with psychologists. Liaison psychiatry is supposed to answer two requests: one from the patient and the other from the caregivers or their institution. The psychiatrist is supposed to have polyvalent abilities concerning the entire psychiatric spectrum, as well as an in depth knowledge of links between somatic and psychological symptoms. He is also required to have an expertise in some specific medical fields essentially in specialised medical or surgical department recruitments in the hospital he works in. The liaison psychiatrist is confronted to numerous difficulties, essentially due to his external position concerning the medical departments. Generally psychiatry is conceived as part of the institution's services. A good example of these difficulties has been provided by the psychiatric care given to suicidal patients who have ingested caustic products. Psychiatry liaison will expand in the future. Today the limited number of doctors allowed to practise in French hospitals essentially limits it.     

Sociopsychological Correlates of Teen-Age Pregnancy in the United States Virgin Islands

Consultation-liaison (C-L) and emergency psychiatry are two aspects of public psychiatry that experienced considerable development during the last decade in France. Major disparities still persist as regards endowment in professional resources and organization of C-L activity from one general hospital to another. Several emergent practices are described that underlie the role attributed to the C-L psychiatrist or psychologist as an expert in some systematic screening or assessment requests, as well as address the issue of combining, for some clinical situations, psychiatric and medical consultations. Substantial efforts have also been made for implementing C-L psychiatry outside the general hospital wards, notably in prisons. Psychiatric emergencies are, henceforth, integrated within emergency facilities of general hospitals. Several sociological changes or health policy decisions in France, such as the deinstitutionalization movement of the mentally ill, led to an increased numbers of patients at psychiatric emergency departments. Progress in crisis management, as well as opening of crisis units outside the hospital wards and some experimental mobile emergency units to operate at patients' homes, limit the number of psychiatric hospitalizations, whether they are with or without patient's consent, which is following a visit to the emergency department of a general hospital. Management of suicide attempts and prevention of recurrences remain a priority goal of emergency psychiatry, as are a better exploration of mixed medical and psychiatric situations and the implementation of facilities specially devoted to child and adolescent emergencies.     

Treatment, care, and rehabilitation of the chronic mentally ill in Poland

In Poland primary health settings provide about 71 percent of mental health services, particularly to patients with less serious illnesses, while psychiatry provides specialized mental health care for the chronic mentally ill, the mentally retarded, and patients with alcohol or drug dependence. Poland has a large number of outpatient clinics and an extensive network of sheltered workshops. Most inpatient psychiatric beds are located in mental hospitals; few general hospitals have psychiatric units. Deinstitutionalization has been less extensive in Poland than in many other countries; only about 10 percent of the chronic patients treated in mental hospitals were deinstitutionalized between 1970 and 1981. During that period the proportion of patients hospitalized for a year or more decreased, the number of chronic patients treated in nursing homes increased, and the pattern of hospitalization shifted toward multiple readmissions.     

Liaison psychiatry from a British perspective

Some differences in the organization of liaison psychiatry between the United States and the United Kingdom are discussed. The fact that much psychiatric morbidity in general hospital patients is unrecognized justifies an expansion of liaison services particularly where referral rates are currently low, as they are in British hospitals. However, it is important that there should be an evaluation of these services together with an assessment of the complementary role of the liaison nurse. It is also suggested that liaison psychiatrists could make a greater contribution to medical student teaching than they do presently.     

Training family practice residents in psychiatry: an ambulatory care training model

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate the importance of providing psychiatric training to primary care practitioners in ambulatory care settings. Additionally, to describe the model used for this purpose in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston in order to further stimulate educational opportunities on this topic. METHOD: A review of the psychiatric curriculum offered to family practice residents during their PGY-2 year one-month rotation in psychiatry at the University of Texas Mental Sciences Institute is provided. Emphasis is given to key areas of the curriculum such as: knowledge, skills, and attitude development. Special focus on the clinical and educational experiences is also offered for the purpose of providing unique perspectives about the curriculum methodology. RESULTS: The careful assessment of the feedback obtained from the family practice residents who were exposed to this ambulatory training model demonstrates that this type of setting was satisfactory for the teaching of psychiatry to primary care residents. CONCLUSIONS: Primary care residents have always treated a large number of psychiatric patients. Given the current status of our health care system, primary care practitioners should have even a greater role in the future delivery of psychiatric services. In this article, we offer a model of training for primary care residents in psychiatry, which emphasize cost-effectiveness, high quality of care, and ambulatory care settings.     

The teaching of consultation-liaison psychiatry in the undergraduate curriculum of Canadian medical schools

The teaching of consultation liaison psychiatry in the undergraduate curriculum of the 16 Canadian medical schools and the views of the directors of undergraduate psychiatric education were surveyed with a 25-item questionnaire. Some teaching in consultation liaison psychiatry is provided by 14 medical schools. The predominant format of teaching is that of supervised experience, and systematic evaluation of this teaching is uniformly absent. The amount of consultation liaison teaching was small. More than 90% of the students were assigned primarily or exclusively to an inpatient service during their psychiatric clerkship. The majority of the respondents thought that the response of staff and students to the teaching of consultation liaison was good or excellent, that this teaching should be an obligatory part of the curriculum, that it would increase in the next five years, that insufficient staff was a factor impeding it, and that an increase in staff psychiatrists specializing in consultation liaison psychiatry would facilitate this teaching in their department. It is suggested that the consultation liaison psychiatry teaching of medical students should be increased, in the short term by making greater use of services and resources. In the longer term, however, such increase would be dependent on the growth and development of consultation liaison services in the teaching hospitals across the country.     

The effectiveness of different learning experiences for teaching psychiatry

In the planning of medical education in the past few years, of timely interest has been the examination of psychiatric education and its effectiveness. A number of methods of teaching have been highlighted as promising, e.g., closed circuit television,¹ movies,² group discussions,³ and group therapy.⁴ Despite innovative approaches in teaching, several studies have indicated that psychiatry is neither a very rewarding experience⁵ for medical students nor a well-learned subject.⁶ Different aspects of the teaching experience have been singled out for criticism; these have varied from poor teaching to too little active participation in patient treatment.⁷Since psychiatry has been shown to be notably unsuccessful in “turning medical students on”, a crucial question to ask is what kinds of experiences are most valued and meaningful for a good learning experience. Rather than focusing exclusively on whether or not the psychiatric training program under study was successful in teaching psychiatry to medical students, the present investigation was designed to delineate the kinds of experiences which go into making up a teaching program in order to assess their value as learning experiences. By focusing in detail on the various aspects of the working-training-teaching setting, which medical students rotate through for their psychiatric clerkship, the study attempted to assess which kinds of experiences in this setting were most highly valued for the learning of psychiatry.Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky Medical School, although taught in the preclinical years, becomes most salient during the junior year when medical students rotate through the service for six weeks. At this time they spend part of their time on both inpatient and outpatient services and are responsible, in colaboration with other staff, for the evaluation and treatment of patients.     

What should general hospital psychiatry do in a community?]

Some experiences in Nagano Red Cross hospital and Nagano Prefecture are presented, and the role of general hospital psychiatry (GHP) in a community is discussed. Psychiatric services in Nagano prefecture with population 2.21 million consist of four blocks. Our unit is in north block, providing treatment for acute phase and, in 2000, 1504 cases were new outpatients, daily outpatients were 198 cases and new inpatients were 604 cases including 146 emergency inpatients. In fiscal 2001, 25.6% of notifications of involuntary hospitalization from all psychiatric hospitals were submitted from GHP occupying 12.9% psychiatric beds, and 129 notifications from our unit were largest in Nagano prefecture. Total 7 GHPs with beds are presented by some data, suggesting two types as GHP. One type has relatively many new inpatients by small beds with short-term hospitalization like our GHP, and another type has relatively small new inpatients by large beds with long-term hospitalization like conventional mental hospital. It is necessary for GHP to pursue the former type, and to functionally differentiate from psychiatric hospital. Results of psychiatric emergency system in Nagano prefecture are presented. Designated hospitals are our GHP with 60 beds in north block, Prefectural Hospital with 310 beds in south block, National Sanatorium with 280 beds in east block and rotating 5 psychiatric hospitals with total 968 beds in west block. GHP with 60 beds hospitalized more emergency new cases than other psychiatric hospitals with large beds and discharged 84% of emergency inpatients to their home. Recently, short-term hospitalization of general hospital beds has rapidly progressed, and shared goal settings are needed, and treatment plans with teamwork by various types of experts have started from community-based home care. This teamwork will be expected throughout community psychiatric services. Although until today GHP's ward unit is financially disadvantageous, patients anticipate medical care of GHP on same level as a part of general hospital of course. For community psychiatric care and short-term hospitalization it is necessary for GHP to cooperate with various types of social resources. As for users of rehabilitation facilities in Nagano prefecture, GHP outpatients occupy 27.2%, and as for day care users, these occupy 19.6%, thus GHPs are able to cooperate with facilities. Above-mentioned facts indicate there is high necessity as a GHP, not a psychiatric hospital or a clinic. Cooperation between GHP and other social resources including welfare services will enrich community psychiatric services. GHP is a wide entrance for psychiatric care from a viewpoints of whole psychiatric care. When GHP accepted all patients on demands from acute cases to chronic, manpower will be diffused, and safety of medical care will be undermined. Therefore, psychiatric triage mainly functioning to treat early stage in severe cases with combined medical and psychiatric illness above all is necessary for GHP in order to offer proper treatment to a community. Accessibility in early stage of disease, priority of seriously ill patients and rehabilitation programs at a community as daily life space are essential for community mental health. We believe the first role of GHP in a community is to seek for psychiatric treatment on same level as general medicine. The second role is the psychiatric triage in order to function as GHP in a community. The third role is to cooperate with other social resources in a community. In order to promote the above it is necessary to self-evaluate GHP concerning the difference with specialized psychiatric hospitals or clinics. From these viewpoints GHP will become a core of community psychiatry. Currently, however, preparation concerned with GHP is poor compared with other advanced countries, so an aggressive improvement in medical policy is expected.     

A new tool for consultation-liaison funding: modified DRGs to reflect psychiatric comorbidity.

Funding for consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry remains an overriding obstacle to its implementation and practice. Several methods have been described to access funds for this subspecialty of psychiatry, but none has been enacted as a policy by third party payers to reimburse adequately for the service. In addition, although the consultation portion of the effort can be reimbursed in part in some cases through fee for services, the liaison portion is dependent on the donation of psychiatry time or the largesse of the host department. The efforts at Stanford to capitalize on the findings that psychiatric and medical comorbidity results in prolonged length of hospital stay and increased health resource utilization suggest that specific DRGs would be important patient groups to screen and charge for psychiatric services. Furthermore, DRGs that are accompanied by a high frequency of psychiatric comorbidity are a "target" for an additional funding aliquot to assess and manage the patient's psychiatric status.     

L’examen clinique psychiatrique standardisé pour l’étudiant,c’est possible !

The systematic approach and the examination of patients are central for the teaching of medicine. However, a very large proportion of medical students are not taught to examine patients with psychiatric disorders. This article summarizes the didactic reflection behind the development of a guide for medical observation in psychiatry for medical students. This guide was built from the framework of a classic medical examination (history of illness, biography, etc.). It also incorporates the different steps from the Mental Status Examination (MSE) as well as questions from several standardized tools. This guide document is intended to be simple and easy to use (check box system) to facilitate the interviews of medical students and residents in psychiatry. Master the clinical examination is an essential step in the process of learning medicine that will then allow to integrate, with experience, the flexibility and adaptability necessary for a psychiatric interview.