The American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT) launched a new mentorship program for outstanding international medical graduates (IMG's) in psychiatric training programs at its January meeting in Charleston, S.C.

Nyapati Rao, M.D., is chair of AADPRT's IMG Steering Committee, which developed the mentorship program. He told Psychiatric News that this is the first time a mentoring program has been developed solely for IMG's in psychiatry.

"Our goal is to dispel the myth that IMG's are not in the same league academically as AMG's [American medical graduates]," said Rao, who is also a consultant to APA's Scientific Program Committee.

Seven promising IMG's were selected by the IMG Steering Committee last fall to be mentored by distinguished psychiatrists, including educators, clinicians, administrators, and researchers. Mentors can assist the IMG's with developing a professional identity and network, teaching and leadership abilities, opportunities for research and publication, and educational performance.

The mentorship program will run continuously with a new class of mentors and mentees announced each January at the AADPRT midwinter meeting. Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceutical Inc. in

Philadelphia has agreed to fund the program, which covers trips to the AADPRT midwinter meeting and APA's annual meeting, and the publication of results of a research project, according to Rao.

The mentee selection process was competitive, with 38 IMG's nominated by their psychiatric training directors. The mentees were chosen on the basis of their outstanding academic performance, leadership qualities, and potential as an academic psychiatrist. Three mentees hold doctorates of philosophy in addition to doctorates of medicine.

The committee selected mentors who most closely matched the mentees' professional interests, ethnic and language background, and geographic location, with priority often given to language. Four mentors graduated from medical schools in Czechoslovakia, Australia, Lebanon, and Peru. The remaining mentors graduated from U.S. medical schools.

Psychiatric News interviewed two pairs of mentors and mentees about the program's benefits and goals.

Renato Alarcon, M.D., professor and vice chair of the department of psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine, commented that the IMG mentorship program is long overdue.

"Although I have mentored IMG's informally, this provides a formal mechanism to assist high-caliber IMG's with acculturation to the United States and academic environments, and develop their maximum potential." Alarcon is an IMG from Peru and a consultant to APA's Committee on International Education.

Alarcon and other mentors are planning a symposium on IMG experiences in American psychiatry for the 1998 AADPRT meeting.

Richard Balon, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University Health Center in Detroit, said, "As a mentor and an IMG, I recognize the importance of helping this group of residents with their careers." Balon is vice chair of APA's Scientific Program Committee and an Assembly liaison to the Committee of IMG's.

Balon speaks Russian and attended medical school in Czechoslovakia, where he also did his psychiatric residency training. He said he was pleased about being matched with Tanya Ramey, M.D., Ph.D., an IMG from Russia and a first-year resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville.

Ramey commented, "The program is helping me form a new professional identity by enabling me to meet outstanding professionals in my field. I also appreciate that the program identified foreign-trained psychiatrists who are highly accomplished professionals in addition to being ethnic immigrants."

Ramey indicated that Balon will help in identifying her interests in clinical psychiatry and writing a review article about negative symptoms in schizophrenia. Ramey is also planning to conduct a research project on treatment-resistant schizophrenia.

Alejandra Hallin, M.D., a mentee from Spain, commented that the AADPRT program provides her with an experienced psychiatrist who can guide her residency education, research goals, and future career plans.

Hallin is a first-year child fellow at Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston. She completed her general psychiatry residency at New York University Medical Center.

She was pleased that Alarcon, her mentor, broadened her professional network at the AADPRT meeting in January when he introduced her to several Hispanic psychiatrists. Alarcon has assisted Hallin in identifying her primary clinical interest as ethnopsychopharmacology. He has suggested literature for her to review and contacting psychiatrists who are experts in the field.

(Psychiatric News, March 7, 1997)