Challenging the medical student in a psychiatry clerkship

Abstract

Medical students sometimes view their rotation in psychiatry as a less-than-optimal experience. The author focuses on the often-heard reference to the psychiatric clerkship as a vacation and the adverse consequences of this attitude on learning. He emphasizes that the medical student can be given a substantial quantity and quality of responsibility without making the clerkship either aggressively overwhelming or disadained as unchallenging.