Stigma against mental illness is putting medical students off academic psychiatry, but a new report seeks to address the issues.

It’s one of the most exciting times to work in psychiatric research, yet the field is losing out when it comes to recruiting medical students, and is suffering in the current economic climate where the needs of clinical services take priority over academic research. So says a new report by the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences, published today. The report proposes measures to change the way psychiatrists are trained in order to make sure that mental health research meets its potential.

Naturejobs asked Professor Nick Craddock, Treasurer of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who was involved in putting together the report, to talk us through the findings.

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Why did the Academy commission this report now?

It’s a time of very exciting scientific development in the field, but it’s also a time when there has been some difficulty in recruiting sufficient people into psychiatry. So there’s a capacity issues. If we don’t produce sufficient high calibre academic psychiatrics, ultimately patients will suffer, because we won’t be driving the research forward. I am confident people are recognising the issues, but it’s up to the different stakeholders to come together and make that work.

Why is it such a good time to get into the field?

For anybody who is interested in the workings of the brain and interested in driving science forward then doing research training in psychiatry is really a very exciting opportunity, because things are going to change more during their career in psychiatry than in any other field. It’s a very special time in psychiatry because of the scientific tools available now, such as neuroimaging,  strong neuroscience developments, molecular genetics. It’s where a lot of the action will be in medicine over the next 20 or 30 years.

In that case, why is there a problem recruiting people? Continue reading →