Pre-clerkship Enrichment Programs
Pre-clerkship Enrichment Programs in Psychiatry
Taste of Psychiatry
This is an extremely popular and well attended event. Held annually where students join faculty and residents over dinner to explore what a career in Psychiatry has to offer. The evening is filled with interesting anecdotes and life experiences shared by faculty and residents. Common topics include – Why Psychiatry, Most Rewarding day in Psychiatry, Work Life Balance, Art in Psychiatry, Confessions of a Psychiatrist, Psychiatry Residency at Western, Clerkship Structure etc. Students get to mingle freely with faculty and residents, ask their questions openly and a lively discussion is encouraged. By the end of the evening, students get a glimpse of ‘a typical day in the life of a psychiatrist’.
Summer Enrichment Program
One again another popular program that is held during the Summer months over a week. The main focus of the Enrichment Program is firstly, on increasing student interest in psychiatry, both as a discipline and as a rewarding and fulfilling career choice, and secondly to extend the teaching and learning options for students who are interested in broadening their skills and knowledge beyond what can be delivered in the standard curriculum.
Students are introduced to aspects of psychiatry, mainly areas of subspecialization, that they are unfamiliar with, e.g., Forensic Psychiatry, First Episode Psychosis program, First Episode Mood and Anxiety program and consultation liaison psychiatry thus providing students with a positive, inspiring, and stimulating experience. In the mornings, students get to interact with various faculty members and residents who engage them in informal interactive sessions. The students are also provided with an opportunity to meet a multi-disciplinary team and tour the hospitals, ECT, TMS suites, community resources, CMHA, Indigenous space (Biigajiiskaan), OSI clinic, sleep lab and more. In the afternoons, students have the opportunity to observe faculty at work. Breakfast, lunch and snacks are provided. The students who attended the Enrichment programs were also likely to apply to the residency program at the same school. From a student perspective, attending a program inevitably helps to consolidate career decision making, regardless of whether psychiatry is chosen or not.
Resident Mentoring
An opportunity to be mentored by a resident in Psychiatry. Effort will be made to match students with residents having similar interests.
