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Since October 2006 the specialist training for house officers in psychiatry in the province of North Holland has started with a one-week intensive induction course. The course has been designed to facilitate the transition to specialist training and to provide trainees with the tools they need for dealing with psychiatric emergencies. Fifteen house officers, divided into three focus groups, were asked for their views on the course. They gave the course a high rating and stated that it had had a positive effect on group-bonding and functioning in their subsequent training.

Conventional antipsychotics are often associated with late-occurring undesirable movement effects. To gain more experience with newer antipsychotic agents, 151 patients in an acute admissions department were switched from treatment with conventional antipsychotics to sertindole between late 1996 and early 1998. Four of these patients had tardive dyskinesia, tardive dystonia and/or tardive akathisia. The effect of changing to sertindole was measured using specific rating scales for undesirable movement effects. Three of the four patients apparently recovered from the movement disorders after switching to sertindole. In one patient, sertindole monotherapy was not sufficient to reduce the movement effects, but combination treatment with tetrabenazine resulted in a greater reduction in extrapyrimidal symptoms. Because these are case reports, no direct conclusions can be drawn. However, the beneficial effect of sertindole on severe, late-occurring movement disorders, as observed in four difficult-to-treat patients, appears to be promising.