General professional training in psychiatry under the eye of the College has changed rapidly over the past twenty years providing benefit, as well as upheaval, for trainee and trainer alike. Along with the increased structure of training has come a change in trainees' career planning—as in all branches of medicine, perhaps—so that less sampling of different specialties and earlier commitment to a final career specialty is now taking place. This, together with the more formalized and structured training stipulations, has led to the development of so-called integrated training schemes in many centres. In Avon it has been felt that such a scheme would be neither practical nor in the trainees' best interests; but a persistent call by a proportion of trainees has fuelled continuing debate over several years.