Educational Activities: Tutorial

• Tutorial
• On-Call
• Outpatient Clinics
• Seminars, Write-Ups, and ECT
• Seminar Schedule for Current Clerkship
• Required Patient and Required Skills Lists

Psychiatry Tutorial Assignments

Each UNC third year medical student will have a second, third or fourth year resident as personal tutor. Assignments will be distributed at orientation.

Each student should contact his/her assigned tutor as early as possible during the first week of the rotation to set up the time for their weekly meetings.   There should be three tutorial meetings, beginning the first week of the rotation (unless otherwise noted) *   Each student will interview selected patients from the UNC Hospitals inpatient psychiatry service, using a standard case evaluation write-up and the oral exam study sheets provided in the orientation packet as guidelines.   The tutorial work of each student will NOT be formally evaluated as part of his or her performance for the clerkship as it is intended to be a learning experience.   Students who have questions regarding the contact of the tutorial should contact their assigned tutor or Dr. Lindsey.

UNC Psychiatry Residents tutoring third-year medical students are guided by the following statement from Dr. Lindsey:

The tutorial program is a crucial component of the educational experience of our third year medical students, often being cited by the students as the most valuable part of their rotation.

The primary goal of the tutorial is to help our students develop their skills in interviewing patients, performing a mental status examination and synthesizing clinical data into   coherent assessment and management plans.   A secondary, but very important goal, is to expose these students to a broader spectrum of patients than they see on their assigned inpatient units.   Specifically, this involves students' participation in some of your outpatient sessions during the clerkship.

Although you are allowed some flexibility in the conduct of this tutorial work, the following are suggestions that many residents have found useful.

.  Meet with the students for 60-90 minutes each week for at least three of the four clerkship weeks.

.  Have the student select a patient to interview and then observe the student's conduct of a 30 minute interview.

.  After the student's interview is complete, it may be helpful to talk to the patient yourself, modeling areas that need improvement such as more skillful history taking or mental status examination.

.  Have the student present the information obtained to you in a concise (approximately five minutes) fashion.   Afterwards you should ask them questions regarding the differential diagnosis and management plan for that particular patient.

.  During your regularly scheduled time in the afternoon ADTC and STEP clinics invite your student to see patients with you.    If you have a new patient evaluation, it may be possible to allow the student to do the initial evaluation, accomplishing the goal outlined above.   Typically, however, the students will be in more of an observational role in the clinic setting.   The primary purpose for their involvement is to see patients who are less severely ill than their hospitalized patients.   They should see a minimum of 10 patients with you during their six-week rotation.

This is an extremely important activity for the students; however, you may benefit as well.   Numerous recent graduates from the program have commented that being in the examiner role has helped them greatly in their preparation for oral part of the Psychiatry Board Examination.   If you have any questions or comments about the conduct of these tutorial sessions, please feel free to contact me at 6-4456 or pager 216-6693.