Training in Psychiatry  

Hello, my name is Esther and I’m currently a core trainee year 3 (CT3) in psychiatry, working in South Yorkshire.  I’ve had a fantastic experience training in South Yorkshire and highly recommend the training programme to those considering a training programme in psychiatry.  

To help you understand what your training journey through psychiatry will look like, I wanted to highlight some useful links to the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s website which shows how you can become a psychiatrist: 

Royal College How To Become A Psychiatrist

Royal College Choose Psychiatry Careers

Core training in psychiatry  

Training in psychiatry involves initially 3 years of core psychiatry training when you rotate around the sub-specialties of psychiatry including general adult, old age, child and adolescent or psychiatry of intellectual disabilities, forensic psychiatry, and liaison psychiatry. If you are a full time core trainee then posts are 6 months long, or if part time they can be 6 months or 12 months long. Training posts may be located in the community or on inpatient units or a combination of both.  

During each post, you will have a clinical supervisor (CS) (a consultant) who will supervise your post and meet with you once a week for one hour for a supervision session alongside day-to-day support. For your 3 years training in core training, you will also have an educational supervisor (ES) (also a consultant) who will meet with you around 3 times a year to oversee and support you during the entirety of your core training. Prior to the start of training, you will be notified of who your educational supervisor is and who will be your first clinical supervisor. Training can start in either February or August each year. 

After you have been accepted to and started core training, The Royal College of Psychiatrists has on online ePortfolio which you can access after you have registered with them. Here is a link to how to register (this is a paid subscription). In the ePortfolio, you will record your training experiences and complete work placed based assessments (WPBAs) as you progress through your training. 

In the eportfolio, you will record your training experiences and complete work placed based assessments (WPBAs) as you progress through your training.

During your core training, is when you have the opportunity to complete your exams in psychiatry through the Royal College of Psychiatrists; paper A, paper B and the Clinical Assessment of Skills and Competencies (CASC) exam.

For more information about the exams, here is a link to the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s website which has the most up to date information: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/training/exams 

Higher training in psychiatry 

 Following completion of core training, trainees can progress to higher training in psychiatry.

After considering and experiencing in core training what you’d like to specialise in as a consultant, you can choose general adult psychiatry, old age psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, psychiatry of intellectual disabilities and forensic psychiatry as single specialty higher training programmes. (Please note: there are no single specialty medical psychotherapy programmes available in Yorkshire and the Humber).

There are also dual higher training opportunities in Yorkshire and the Humber in:

• General adult psychiatry and old age psychiatry
• General adult psychiatry and medical psychotherapy
• Forensic psychiatry and medical psychotherapy
• Forensic psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry
• Forensic psychiatry and psychiatry of intellectual disabilities
• Child and adolescent psychiatry and medical psychotherapy
• Child and adolescent psychiatry and psychiatry of intellectual disabilities

Higher training is usually 3 years for a single speciality and 4 for dual specialities, but there may be exceptions to this depending on the speciality. During higher training, will also have a clinical supervisor (CS) for each post (as in core training) and an educational supervisor (ES) who oversees the whole of your higher training journey. At the end of higher training, you will achieve a CCT (Certificate of Completion in Training). You can then apply for posts as a consultant.