Ongoing evaluation in psychiatry: the first step toward quality

Concern about quality control in psychiatric training has been heightened by the lack of standardized assessment within residencies to ensure that graduates reach a level of competence commensurate with the ability to practice independently and the high failure rate on the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology examination. An APA task force explored the paucity of evaluation of both training programs and residents and made 10 recommendations for improving the quality of residency training. The authors describe the evaluative components of these recommendations and the political steps taken to gain professional consensus for their requirement in all training programs.