Sharing mental health care. Training psychiatry residents to work with primary care physicians

Overcoming problems in communication between psychiatry and primary care requires new models of collaboration. Their success will depend upon the ability of participants to work productively with each other, which will require psychiatry residency programs to offer appropriate preparation for future graduates in working with primary care physicians. This article, based on the training at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, describes a brief curriculum for training psychiatry residents to work effectively with primary care physicians that can be easily integrated with current training rotations and looks at adjustments academic departments need to make to support such programs.