Organ-system–based psychiatry education in undergraduate medicine: learning outcomes and specialty choice

Uptake into psychiatry remains modest in many medical education systems, potentially related to limited curricular integration. We implemented an organ-system–based psychiatry module to improve relevance and engagement, evaluating medical students’ satisfaction and subsequent specialty choice. This study was conducted in Peking University’s 8-year clinical medicine program, in which students enter directly after high school, study psychiatry in Year 3, and in Year 6 select their specialty for standardized residency training. Four consecutive Year-3 cohorts exposed to the reformed psychiatry module (entering classes of 2019–2022) completed an anonymous 15-item post-course questionnaire (4-point Likert scale) covering Teaching Content, Teaching Methods, Course-related Learning Outcomes and Personal Growth. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s α, and student satisfaction was summarized as mean domain scores with item-level percentages. Between-cohort differences were tested using Welch’s ANOVA with Games–Howell post-hoc comparisons. For specialty choice, administrative records were used to compare the proportion of students selecting psychiatry in Year 6 before (Classes of 2014–2018) versus after the reform (Classes of 2019–2020). Specialty choice data are available only for the Classes of 2019–2020. Of 655 eligible students, 502 completed the survey (76.6% response rate). The overall Cronbach’s α for the questionnaire was 0.81, with reliability ranging from α = 0.40 to 0.88. Teaching Content and Learning Outcomes had acceptable reliability (α = 0.71), Personal Growth was highly reliable (α = 0.88), and Teaching Methods had low reliability (α = 0.40). Domain scores were generally favorable: Teaching Content (3.14 ± 0.73), Teaching Methods (3.24 ± 0.46), Course-related Learning Outcomes (3.14 ± 0.54), and Personal Growth (3.37 ± 0.56). Teaching Methods scores varied across years, while other domains were stable. The proportion entering psychiatry residency increased from 13/546 (2.38%) in pre-reform cohorts to 17/307 (5.54%) in post-reform cohorts (absolute difference 3.16% points, 95% CI 0.30–6.02; z = 2.16, p = 0.031). An organ-system–based psychiatry module was associated with favorable learner evaluations and a higher proportion of entry into psychiatry residency. Embedding psychiatry within organ-system curricula may enhance student engagement and interest in psychiatry.