Interview-Dr Felicity Plunkett
Felicity is the Director of Training for Psychiatry and offers an insight to the training programme. If you would like to find out more, read on...
I embarked on my OE after completing my House Officer years in
New Zealand and after travelling in Asia, was recruited into the
Royal Free Hospital psychiatry training programme in London. After
18 months of working in London, I came back to New Zealand and
resumed my psychiatry training here. I have had many years of
experience in acute psychiatry where I've worked in acute inpatient
wards and an acute crisis community team in west Auckland. In
recent years, I've taken on the role of Director of Training where
I'm responsible for coordinating and organising training for 80
Registrars in Auckland. I also take part in teaching and mentoring,
which I enjoy.
Choosing psychiatry came naturally to me as I've always been
interested in people's psychology and finding out what makes them
'tick'. I also had a notion that psychiatry would never be boring
and that certainly proved to be the case.
The most enjoyable aspect of psychiatry is the huge variety of
people you meet. Everyone is so different, and they've all got
individual stories which I find fascinating. It's also challenging
to put myself in their shoes to understand what they are going
through and trying to draw complex threads together to understand
people on a psychological level. It's also about recognising
patterns to identify the illness process and to be clear about the
diagnosis and treatment, which can be complex. We like to take a
holistic approach in psychiatry such as taking into account
people's biological, psychological, social and cultural issues. I
also enjoy team work and the people who are drawn to psychiatry.
There is a good camaraderie within the teams - you need a sense of
humour in psychiatry.
The teaching involves a mixture of practical clinical training,
where trainees work alongside supervisors in different clinical
settings and multi-disciplinary teams, and also various academic
tasks.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
have specific clinical and academic training requirements and tasks
. The Psychiatry training programme is a minimum of five years in
duration. The first three years consists of basic training, where
you have one year of adult psychiatry, six months of child
psychiatry, 6 months of liaison psychiatry (which is where you work
in the general hospital providing psychiatric service to the
general medical and surgical wards), six months of old age
psychiatry and another six months is more 'up for grabs' where
trainees generally do some community psychiatry. Throughout their
training there is the academic programme with dedicated teaching
one day a week. Once trainees have completed all the practical and
clinical requirements and written up two case histories, and sat
and passed the written and clinical examinations, they can proceed
through to advanced training.
Advanced training is internally assessed and there are no more
examinations. At this point, trainees may decide to be generalists
or sub-specialise in one of seven sub-specialties. Upon completion
of advanced training, everyone will obtain a fellowship
qualification in psychiatry and for those who have sub-specialised;
they would also obtain a certificate of advanced training in their
sub-specialty.
In the Auckland region, we have specialist teams in Maori and
Pacific Island psychiatry (Pacific Island psychiatry teams unique
to Auckland). We are also a big programme hence we are able to
offer a wider range of sub-specialty posts and occasionally we have
trainees moving to Auckland from other parts of New Zealand to get
relevant advanced training experience.
Outside of work, I enjoy writing fiction and poetry, read
voraciously, do art and currently I'm redesigning the Auckland
psychiatry programme website.
There's an annual party each year which is also our opportunity
to present awards and recognise trainees who have done well across
the year, or achieved fellowship. Commonly, teams get together
regularly for social and academic activities.
If you are interested in psychiatry, it's always a good idea to
try one or more psychiatry house-officer runs before deciding. I
would also recommend reading a variety of books linked to
psychiatry. We're very approachable and I'm happy for people to
come and talk to me if they would like to explore our training
further.