Psychiatry in the land of the Sphinx: is an overseas elective justified?

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to provide a descriptive account of a 6-month sabbatical in Egypt to highlight the diversity of benefits in incorporating such activities within psychiatric training programs. CONCLUSIONS: An overseas elective offers an exciting practical opportunity to broaden one's experience of transcultural psychiatry and obtain a perspective on mental illness and its cultural variations. It also promotes an understanding of health service management in low and middle income countries and offers the opportunity to contribute to their healthcare at minimal cost. However, the elective needs to be undertaken at an optimal period of a psychiatrist's career and with minimal disruption to local services. Training schemes and employers could provide more opportunities for interested trainees, with specified projects and aims in mind, to undertake such electives so that they can begin to develop expertise in treating a particular cultural group. In turn, this would go a long way to producing culturally capable psychiatrists for the wide range of ethnic minorities in Australia.