Post Graduate Medical Education

People choose a career in psychiatry for a wide range of reasons including because it is a fascinating subject to study and work in interest in, positive experience as a medical student or Foundation Doctor, personal or family experiences of mental illness, etc.  Psychiatry offers doctors a wide range of career options, working with people with of all ages in settings as diverse as psychiatric hospitals, community teams, clinics, prisons, general hospitals, GP surgeries, etc.
In psychiatry, as there are few definitive diagnostic laboratory tests for mental disorders there is a reliance on the clinical skills of the psychiatrist and most diagnoses are made following a comprehensive history taken from the patient and/or relatives and carers, a mental and cognitive state examination and a physical examination.

Career Progression

Although core training in psychiatry is a year longer than core training in most other medical specialties higher training takes less time than most, so it is possible to complete specialist training in psychiatry in six years.  Career prospects for doctors training in psychiatry in South Yorkshire are excellent - in 2010 all of our trainees who gained a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) have secured consultant posts.

Training in South Yorkshire

Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust (SHSC) is the lead employer for the South Yorkshire Psychiatric Training scheme.  The scheme is well established with a strong record of providing quality training.  Specialty Registrars in Psychiatry in South Yorkshire attend an MRCPsych preparation course with excellent exam pass rates compared to the national average (see graph).  
The scheme has close links with the University of Sheffield Department of Academic Clinical Psychiatry. This department has an active research and training programme which means that trainees in South Yorkshire have plenty of opportunities to gain experience and develop competence in these areas.

“When I got shortlisted for Manchester and Sheffield rotations, I was living in Manchester. I can still remember my train journey through the Peak District to Sheffield and I was thinking to myself that ‘I would like to live and work here’.”

This page was last updated on 14th December 2012