Evolving Roles and Needs of Psychiatry Chief Residents During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond.

Psychiatry chief residents have diverse leadership roles within psychiatry residency programs. Chief residents have historically been viewed as "middle managers", and other leadership roles include administrative work, teaching, and advocacy for residents. Chief residents also help in managing the logistics of complex healthcare systems and mediating between many groups with conflicting needs and perspectives. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the functioning of psychiatry residency programs, and this has also led to the evolution of the roles of the chief residents in psychiatry. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the chief residents had to help with adapting to the changes in teaching and clinical work with residents and faculty. They had to liaison with various healthcare providers in making decisions related to COVID-19 in residency programs. Along with these changes, chief residents also had to advocate for the wellbeing and needs of their fellow residents. This perspective article is written by authors who have served during or after the transition to the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss our experiences as chief residents as well as evolving roles and wellness needs of chief residents in psychiatry. Based on the administrative, advocacy, academic and middle management roles of chief residents in psychiatry and their wellbeing, we also make recommendations for support and interventions needed for chief residents in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Enhancing Psychiatry Education through Podcasting: Learning from the Listener Experience.

OBJECTIVE: Podcasts have recently been introduced into psychiatry education, despite limited evidence evaluating podcasting in medical education. PsychEd is an educational, publicly available podcast targeting junior learners in psychiatry. This study characterized PsychEd's listeners and the podcast's role in their education. METHODS: The study involved a mixed-methods survey, followed by semi-structured phone interviews with respondents. There were 97 survey responders in total, of whom 9 participated in a telephone interview. Survey responses were coded as interval data and analyzed descriptively using statistical software. Interviews were transcribed and coded for emergent themes using a grounded theory model. RESULTS: PsychEd listeners represented an interprofessional audience, with 46 respondents (48%) being physicians or physicians in training, and 34 (35%) being allied mental health professionals. All respondents (100%) rated the podcast as "helpful" or "very helpful" for general knowledge. Listeners were attracted to PsychEd for the auditory learning format, the opportunity to review existing knowledge, the focus on core topics, the Canadian expertise, and the presentation of "clinical pearls." Respondents highlighted valuable qualities of a psychiatry podcast: conversational, case-based, narrative approach, longer episodes (i.e., 30-60 minutes) as compared to other medical specialties, and a clinical focus. Furthermore, they identified podcasts as an opportunity for shared interprofessional curricula. CONCLUSION: This study is the first to examine the motivations and experiences of listeners of a psychiatry educational podcast. The findings support existing literature on the benefits of podcasts in medical education. Future studies should explore the impact of podcasts on learning and behaviors.

Modulation of spatial and response strategies by phase of the menstrual cycle in women tested in a virtual navigation task.

Different memory systems are employed to navigate an environment. It has been consistently shown in rodents that estrogen impacts multiple memory system bias such that low estradiol (E2) is associated with increased use of a striatal-mediated response strategy whereas high E2 increases use of a hippocampal-dependent spatial memory. Low E2 also enhances performance on a response-based task whereas high E2 levels improve learning on a spatial task. The purpose of the present cross-sectional study was to investigate navigational strategies in young, healthy, naturally cycling women. Participants were split into either an early follicular (i.e., when E2 levels are low), ovulatory (i.e., when E2 levels are high) or mid/late luteal (i.e., end of the cycle, when E2 levels decrease and progesterone levels rise) phase group, using self-reported date of the menstrual cycle. Serum hormone level measurements (E2, progesterone, testosterone) were used to confirm cycle phase assignment. Participants were administered a verbal memory task as well as a virtual navigation task that can be solved by using either a response or spatial strategy. Women tested in the ovulatory phase, under high E2 conditions, performed better on a verbal memory task than women tested during the other phases of the cycle. Interestingly, women tested in the mid/late luteal phase, when progesterone is high, predominantly used a spatial strategy, whereas the opposite pattern was observed in the early follicular and ovulatory groups. Our data suggest that the specific memory system engaged differs depending on the phase of the menstrual cycle and may be mediated by both E2 and progesterone, rather than E2 alone.