Psychiatry Assessment.

During participation in QICM for psychiatry, participants will complete a 2-Phase assessment program over a total of three days.  Phase 1A is a two-day comprehensive assessment that includes a number of examinations designed to assess your strengths and weaknesses.  Phase 1B is one-day, in which 3 mock patient assessments and are done for one-half of the day, and the remaining half of the day includes questions based on observations in a psychiatric clinic in progress.  This third day will include obtaining the history, the mental status examination, and development of the psychiatric diagnostic assessment and treatment plan, with attention to the physician-patient interaction, clinical courtesy and information sharing.  The results of Phase 1A and 1B will be combined to provide a composite picture that we hope participants will find beneficial.

Over the course of his or her career, every physician develops strengths and weaknesses in patient care.  Therefore, ongoing physician assessment is becoming an important part of continuing professional development.  Every new board certified physician in every specialty now has to regularly take examinations which demonstrate continued competence in patient care.

As participants proceed through these examinations, they may become concerned about their performance.  They are not expected to answer all of the questions correctly, and will not fail the QICM assessment if they do poorly on just one of the examinations.  Participants will be compared with their peers, and with norms developed for practicing physicians in psychiatry.  In the end, we look at a composite picture of their performance.  While our program is part of the University of California , participants are not expected to perform like an academically based physician, and these examinations have been developed for general psychiatrists.