A survey of foundation doctors' attitudes towards psychiatry before and after their first clinical working year

Recruitment into psychiatry has always been relatively difficult because medical graduates perceive it to be unattractive due to stigma and possible systemic professional bias. In the United Kingdom, recruitment into psychiatry has reached a crisis point and a number of posts remain unfilled. This has impact on current and future mental health services. Notwithstanding government policies, to ensure a stable psychiatric workforce for the future, there is an urgent need to motivate current and future cohorts of young doctors to take up psychiatry as a career. This cannot be done without establishing the reasons behind this negative trend among those choosing future medical careers. There is some evidence to suggest that clinical experience in psychiatry positively changes attitudes towards choosing it as specialty for training. We carried out a survey among first year Foundation doctors to examine their perception of psychiatry as a future career and ascertain whether their clinical experience changed their attitudes towards this specialty. Keywords: recruitment, psychiatry, career, choice