Sparking medical students' interest in psychiatry
Professor of psychiatry Sidse Arnfred, Region Zealand, has a mission. She wants to strengthen psychiatry teaching for medical students at the University of Copenhagen. A grant of DKK 1.6 million from the Lundbeck Foundation is now paving the way for the development of new, innovative teaching material in psychiatry for undergraduate medical students at the University of Copenhagen.
"With this study, we hope to spark an early interest in psychiatry amongst undergraduate medical students, and in the long term improve recruitment of doctors to the field ", says Sara Andersen, project manager (MD) from the Psychiatric Research Unit, Region Zealand.
In the current curriculum, medical students are first introduced to psychiatry late in their studies, during the latter half of their master's degree. Studies have shown that an early interest in psychiatry among medical students is a key predictor for later choosing a career within the field.
Anette Høye, Scientific Programme Manager at the Lundbeck Foundation, agrees with the need for earlier teaching and welcomes the project:
"We need more students to specialize in psychiatry if we want to improve psychiatry and strengthen research in the broad psychiatric field in the future. The project therefore serves an obvious purpose for the Lundbeck Foundation to support," says Anette Høye.
E-learning: Intertwining psychiatry with other medical fields
The teaching material will be developed as an e-learning course with a focus on interactive, student-engaging elements. It will be included as a supplement to the other teaching in selected courses at the Bachelor’s degree programme (BSc), such as a course covering the structure and function of the central nervous system. And precisely this integration of psychiatric elements into the rest of medical education has an important function:
"By intertwining psychiatric cases and themes with the rest of the medical curriculum, we want to make visible the connections between psychiatry and other fields of medicine," says Sidse Arnfred adding: "The idea is that this will contribute to increased respect for, interest in, and understanding of psychiatry as a discipline and medical field.”
From testing to permanent implementation
The project is currently in its development phase, where experts, medical students, and psychiatric users all contribute with input to the content and form of the teaching material, while the University of Copenhagen's Center for Online and Blended Learning helps with production. The first test phase will start in the autumn of 2023, where approx. 100 bachelor students divided into three different semester levels will have access to the new material. Adjusted according to students' feedback, the teaching material will be rolled out in three semester steps to approx. 800-900 students in spring, 2024. The project will conclude in the autumn of 2024 with evaluations from the students. By then the teaching material is ready for use by future bachelor students:
"It is our hope that the new teaching material will be implemented as a permanent part of the the e-learning materials available to students, so that future students may also benefit from it," explains Sidse Arnfred. "And with the efforts we’re making to create relevant, inspiring, and visually appealing e-learning material, we firmly believe that this is a realistic goal. If things go really well, the material can hopefully also be used at other universities, so we can spread knowledge about and interest in psychiatry to even more future doctors."
The Lundbeck Foundation has granted DKK 1.639.152 to the project, while Region Zealand, the Capital Region of Denmark, and the University of Copenhagen have supported the project with a total of DKK 403,348.
Professor Sidse Arnfred
sidar@regionsjaelland.dk
+45 2422 7045
Head of Media relations, Lundbeckfonden, Jesper Sloth Møller
jsm@lundbeckfonden.com
+45 2233 8601
