Being a mentor keeps you sharp and interested. One of the key problems for a mental health professional is burnout because of the chronic nature of the illnesses. Having trainees subverts all that. There's nothing like the presence of an eager third-year medical student who is just fascinated with a patient's case to keep one's own interest alive. Perhaps most crucially, Guynn says the residents are valued caregivers.
Attention is paramount in the treatment of psychiatric patients.
Social isolation is a common problem and the experts are clear that almost anything one can do to increase the attention paid to a person with chronic mental illness improves the patient's symptoms. Each year, eight new residents, for a total of 32, are admitted to the UT-Houston Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences residency program. Graduating medical students interview and apply for admission to programs they are interested in. Applicants and residency programs evaluate and rank one another, and then a computerized process pairs applicants with programs based on the ranked preferences. The program provides a uniform date for decisions about residency selection and eliminates the pressure that might otherwise fall upon applicants and programs to make decisions before all of their options are known.