Dr. Margaret Kennedy:

A few months ago in the British Journal of Psychiatry, there were some figures on the UK experience of people dropping out. Interestingly, something like 40% were interested in doing psychiatry when they entered medical school but that figure dropped significantly, to below 10%, by the time they left. Some people reflected that it is not necessarily a bad thing. What is the perception of psychiatry about? It has led us to think we do not want everybody to be interested in psychiatry because one needs mental agility, passion and love for it and one must withstand exposure to things like suicide. There are many different things. If we could get 4% or 8% of medical students we would still be able to attract the people we need, who are leaders. There are some figures we could send on which indicate there is a drift in this regard. We do not want the people who come to psychiatry to get burnout. There is more and more information about burnout and it is recognised as the push in the system. The mental health of physicians is an issue. We want to attract 4% or 8% to our training programme and we want to ensure they stay. I agree thoroughly with the Deputy that the culture within which one works is probably the biggest factor in deciding whether one will function well and whether one will burn out and still smoulder on. We can send on those figures if the Deputy is interested.