The internship: some disquieting findings

A natural experiment in psychiatric education took place nationally between 1970 and 1976, when one group of residents entered psychiatry with an internship, and the other without one. In this study 22 psychiatry residents with an internship and 25 without one were compared during their first two years of training. Initial faculty evaluations of the two groups' responsibility, insight, teachability, and knowledge were virtually identical, as were those of their overall performance in inpatient, consultation, and emergency psychiatry. However, ratings of outpatient psychotherapy showed several significant and differences favoring the noninternship group. The authors find these results disquieting. They suggest that interferences with empathy may be an untoward side effect of the internship.