The question has been posed—is an examination necessary to admit to the membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists? The College represents the views of psychiatrists, maintains the standards of the profession, regulates and monitors practise and accepts a broad overall responsibility for education. It should admit to its membership those who practice as psychiatrists. Who then are the psychiatrists? Should the membership be open to anyone who makes such a claim or should it be linked with appointment to specific jobs as a psychiatrist at a level yet to be determined? What of private practitioners, interested GPs? Surely anyone who wants to be a psychiatrist, to paraphrase Sam Goldwyn, ought to have his head examined by his peers to establish that his claim to be a psychiatrist is acceptable. It is the College which should regulate entry into the profession of psychiatry, not the National Health Service, an employing authority, or even the universities. Some membership entrance conditions are needed which lay down minimum requirements for becoming a psychiatrist and it is important to exclude or reject, in my view, before higher psychiatric training commences.

What is the best way of maintaining and raising the quality of ‘higher’ (i.e. senior registrar) training, and the best way of ensuring that aspiring psychiatric specialists are competent to undertake the tasks ahead of them? Basically, three alternatives are available—examination, or ‘accreditation’ of individual trainees, or inspection of training posts—and my purpose is to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these alternatives.

Trainees in psychiatry have a unique opportunity to contribute to the policy and decision-making within the College, not only on matters relating to training but on broader issues facing psychiatry as a whole. This has been made possible by the introduction of Inceptorship (see Handbook for Inceptors and Trainees in Psychiatry) and by the more recent formation of the Collegiate Trainees Committee (CTC). The Royal College of Psychiatrists is the only college which encourages trainees to join as ‘junior members’, and gives them the opportunity to contribute actively in its working. I would like to review the progress of the CTC since its first meeting in September 1979.

Since its inception in the late summer of 1979 the Collegiate Trainees Committee has devoted considerable time to discussing the present and future status and organization of the MRCPsych Examination. The following is a summary of the views of the Committee as collated by its Examination Working Party.

Council have given consideration to the organization of rotational training schemes in psychiatry at senior house officer and registrar level and the assessment of trainees. Council are conscious of the wide range of opinion held within the profession about the content of general professional (i.e. pre-MRCPsych) training and the need for any guidance offered to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate a variety of viewpoints. Nonetheless, it is felt that reasonably clear advice can be given about the main components of general professional training. It is hoped that this report will be helpful to psychiatric tutors and others responsible for organizing training schemes. The College has already issued guidance on some of the matters with which this report is concerned in its pamphlet Educational Programmes for Trainees in Psychiatry and in an article entitled ‘Approval Visits: Guidelines on Criteria and Facilities for Training’ (Bulletin, September 1978, pp 158–59).