EXPOSURE TO MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY IN MEDICAL SCHOOL: A STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

Most marital and family therapists, both medically and nonmedically trained, regularly interact with physicians on a professional basis. Though some physicians receive specific training in marital and family therapy in their postgraduate residency programs, (notably those in psychiatry and family medicine), for many, the only academic exposure they receive to this field comes during a 6- to 10-week clinical clerkship in psychiatry during their third or fourth year of medical school. No study could be located which examined marital and family therapy training in undergraduate medical education. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the level of marital and family therapy training in medical school and to provide information concerning physicians who are not family therapists, and how much knowledge about the field they can be expected to have.