Editor’s Note

This issue initiates a new feature, Education in Psychiatry . These articles begin with a vignette of a common clinical problem and then describe a method to teach residents, fellows, or medical students a clinical skill that they need to address this issue in their own patients. The initial article, “Impact of Clinical Training on Violence Risk Assessment,” by Dale McNeil and colleagues, is especially noteworthy because it describes both a teaching method and an evaluation of its effectiveness. A subsequent article in this series will describe the teaching of supportive psychotherapy.

This issue also has one of our continuing series, Treatment in Psychiatry . Complementing our education article on violence assessment, Robert Findling and Nora McNamara describe in “Guns, Adolescents, and Mental Illness” the treatment of an adolescent at risk for committing school violence. This series also begins with the vignette of a clinical problem. Whereas Education in Psychiatry presents information for educators and their students and trainees, Treatment in Psychiatry summarizes the latest information from an expert clinician on how to treat a problem that even the most experienced psychiatrists find challenging.

The Journal continues to publish Clinical Case Conferences . Unlike the Treatment and Education in Psychiatry series that begin with vignettes designed to highlight a specific topic, a Clinical Case Conference is based on an actual case, appropriately disguised, that discusses in detail the full breadth of issues in that patient’s treatment. The case should have been discussed in a departmental or other clinical forum. The sponsoring department’s name is now featured in the title.

The Journal welcomes submissions for these features from interested authors. We intend to publish two of the three in each issue. Prospective authors may wish to check with the Journal’s office ([email protected]) to ensure that another similar article is not already in preparation. These features are also highlighted in the Journal’s CME Courses and AJP Audio, a 30-minute summary of each issue that can be downloaded to an MP3 player or CD. Both AJP CME and AJP Audio can be found on the Journal’s web site, www.ajp.psychiatryonline.org.