Goals of medical student psychiatric education

The authors present a comprehensive statement of the goals of medical student psychiatric education. The focus is on content rather than on the process of teaching or of curriculum design. Many of the areas of learning are likely either to be taught by nonpsychiatric instructors or to be not specifically programmable into a curriculum. The approach of focusing on the desired competence in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes can result in these goals and their subsequent modifications serving as a benchmark for assessment of the adequacy of a particular program.