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Now in its 29th year, the Public Psychiatry Fellowship of the New York Psychiatric Institute at Columbia Medical Center selects 10 fellows per year for its 1-year program (1). This award-winning fellowship trains future leaders for the public mental health sector. The curriculum (2) employs a combination of a didactic seminar series, management-problem-focused presentations by guest speakers, field trips, and supervision by fellowship faculty to instill the values and skills required for practice and leadership in the public sector. Fellows utilize the framework of the academic curriculum to carry out a series of presentations throughout the year that allow them to organize, implement and evaluate concepts that they learn during the year. The following account, written from bird's eye view, details one fellow's day at his field placement in a State Hospital outpatient clinic setting, with the aim of illustrating how the concepts taught by the fellowship find application in day to day practice.

A crisis in the behavioral health care workforce has drawn considerable attention from consumers, families, advocates, clinical professionals, and system administrators at local, state, and federal levels in the past decade. Its effects have been felt in the recruitment, retention, and performance of psychiatrists in the public sector, where a focus on biological aspects of illness and efforts to cut costs have made it difficult for public psychiatrists to engage meaningfully in leadership, consultation, prevention, and psychosocial interventions. An array of training opportunities has recently been created to meet the needs of community psychiatrists at various stages of their careers, from psychiatrists just beginning their careers to those who have been working as medical directors for several years. This article describes the development of these initiatives and their impact on public psychiatry in four key areas--training of experienced psychiatrists, ensuring retention of psychiatrists in community programs, providing fellowship training, and creating professional identity and pride. Although these programs constitute only initial steps, opportunities for psychiatrists to obtain advanced training in community psychiatry are much greater now than they were ten years ago. These initiatives will enhance the professional identity of community psychiatrists and provide a solid foundation for future development of public service psychiatry in the behavioral health workforce.

This study examines which issues public psychiatrists perceive as having most impacted their careers over the past five years and whether this impact was experienced differently by psychiatrists in varying regions of the country. The author sent a questionnaire to all members of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists in clinical practice for at least five years. Seventy-one percent (344 of 482) responded. As expected, respondents were generally negative about how economic factors have impacted their professional lives. This impact, however, was experienced very differently depending on which region of the country the psychiatrist was working.

This study examines which issues public psychiatrists perceive as having most impacted their careers over the past five years and whether this impact was differentially experienced by staff psychiatrists and medical directors. The authors sent a questionnaire to all members of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists (AACP) in clinical practice for at least 5 years. Surprisingly, public psychiatrists report that the impact of recent changes have been primarily positive, except in the domain of economic developments. Both program and agency medical directors report experiencing about the same amount of change, though significantly more positive overall impact, compared to staff psychiatrists. This finding should encourage psychiatrists to become program medical directors, a feasible next step for many staff psychiatrists.

To examine the variety of roles filled by psychiatrists functioning as medical directors in community settings, a survey of all members of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists was undertaken. A total of 168 respondents classified themselves as agency medical directors or program medical directors. Medical directors also classified their breadth of supervisory responsibility as including medical staff only, medical and other clinical staff, or all staff (including administrative staff). A classification scheme of six types of medical director positions based on level of operation and breadth of supervisory responsibility was created. This classification helps clarify the medical director's role, providing guidance to psychiatrists and agencies negotiating job descriptions for this position.

Previous surveys of public and community psychiatrists have demonstrated that medical directors perform a wider variety of tasks, and experience increased job satisfaction, compared to staff psychiatrists. Notwithstanding respondents' belief that clinical collaboration tasks contribute most to job satisfaction, the performance of administrative tasks is most highly correlated with overall job satisfaction. The current survey was undertaken to determine whether these findings could be replicated among hospital-based psychiatrists. Demographic and job characteristic profiles of hospital-based psychiatrists were clearly distinguished from those of community psychiatrists. Despite these differences, task profiles and job satisfaction parameters of hospital-based psychiatrists were comparable to those previously reported for community psychiatrists.

Objective: In a recently published survey of alumni of the Columbia University public psychiatry fellowship, respondents who were medical directors reported performing a greater variety of tasks and experiencing higher job satisfaction than those who were staff psychiatrists. Both medical directors and staff psychiatrists believed that job satisfaction was most dependent on clinical collaboration activities. Survey data were reanalyzed to determine whether there was a relationship between the frequency of tasks performed and overall job satisfaction, and whether the tasks that actually predicted overall job satisfaction were the same as those that respondents believed contributed to job satisfaction., Methods: The survey was distributed to all public psychiatry fellows and alumni in active practice (N=89), and 72 forms (81 percent) were returned. The survey consisted of 16 self-administered items divided into three categories of job tasks: direct service, clinical collaboration, and administration., Results and Conclusions: Despite respondents' beliefs that clinical collaboration activities contributed most to job satisfaction, performance of administrative tasks was found to best correlate with overall job satisfaction. Furthermore, overall job satisfaction was related to the performance of administrative tasks and not to the job title of medical director alone. Most of the medical directors in the survey had program-level, rather than agency-level, responsibilities. The findings indicate that the role of program medical director can serve as a crucial next step for staff psychiatrists, offering the opportunity to perform administrative tasks, which, according to the results, improves job satisfaction in public-sector positions.

Objectives: Previous surveys of the alumni of Columbia University's fellowship in public psychiatry suggest that a large number of alumni fill positions as program medical directors. In contrast with agency medical directors, program medical directors work within team structures and maintain a high degree of clinical involvement. The fellowship faculty surveyed the alumni to catalog the tasks performed by program medical directors, agency medical directors, and staff psychiatrists and to determine the extent to which these tasks contribute to job satisfaction., Methods: A survey form was developed using a list of tasks derived from the American Psychiatric Association's guidelines for psychiatrists working in organized mental health care delivery systems and from a recent article that surveyed job descriptions of psychiatrists in community mental health centers. The survey form was distributed to all current fellows and alumni in active practice (N = 89)., Results and Conclusions: Seventy-two forms were returned, for a response rate of 81 percent. Respondents who were medical directors performed a greater variety of tasks and reported higher job satisfaction than those who were staff psychiatrists. Higher job satisfaction was related to a greater variety of tasks performed, especially tasks involving clinical collaboration. Most of the respondents were program medical directors rather than agency medical directors. The position of program medical director constitutes a relatively small and attainable step above that of staff psychiatrist. Agencies would do well to consider creating positions of program medical directors for their staff psychiatrists whenever feasible, and psychiatrists committed to public-sector careers should negotiate to have such positions.