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NEWS: Lynn Eaton Health department scraps national training application system BMJ 2007; 335: 738-b-739-b [Full text]

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The Tooke Inquiry

Philip Seager   (16 October 2007)

The Tooke Inquiry 16 October 2007
Philip Seager, Public Governor & retired psychiatrist Sheffield Teaching Hosps Foundation Trust S10 2JF Send response to journal: Re: The Tooke Inquiry	In general I support the comments on the Tooke Inquiry except for six words in brackets concerning the defined core programmes of the registered doctor - namely medicine, surgery and family medicine. It is surely important to include psychiatry, or mental health services, to enable all doctors to have practical experience of the 20 - 30% of patients in a general hospital, and probably more in family medicine, whose condition is at least complicated by mental health problems, and in a proportion misdiagnosed as physical when in fact the correct diagnosis is psychiatric. In 1981, in Sheffield, I introduced a three phase rotation for pre- registration house officers - four months each of medicine, surgery and psychiatry - reported on by O'Dwyer, and Mason,the first holder of a post,and with a similar programme by Herzberg in London. I have no doubt that this would be an appropriate segment of the new training programme, though I am aware that it would involve the need for a great (and necessary) increase in good quality psychiatric input to general hospital services. J. O'Dwyer Psychiatric Bulletin (1999) 23. 283-285. R. Mason Psychiatric Bulletin (2003) 27. 394-5. J. Herzberg et al. Psychiatric Bulletin (2003) 27. 192-4. Competing interests: Pressing for improvement in psychiatric services to Sheffield Foundation Trust