Dear colleagues,
I am very pleased and honoured to have been given the opportunity to write about our national trainees organisation.
For clarification purposes, it should be noted that in Portugal, Adult Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry are two separate and independent specialties with their own unique residency programs and National Trainees Associations: APIP and ANIPIA respectively.
APIP:
The Portuguese Association of Psychiatric Trainees (Associação Portuguesa de Internos de Psiquiatria – APIP) is a non-profit and non-governmental association composed of Psychiatry trainees, whose members associate on a voluntary basis. APIP was officially born on June 3rd 2005, in response to the discrepancy between the National Psychiatry Residency Training Programme, and the reality of many residents in training; trying to fill the gap between the desirable and the possible.
Since then, APIP has been an active voice in the defence of the interests of all Psychiatry Trainees, promoting quality in residency training and the constant dialogue with the institutions involved in the National Psychiatry Residency Training Programme.
Our missions are numerous and include: promoting effective dialogue between residents, convey information concerning the residency, stimulate scientific and cultural activities, and maintaining contacts and protocols with various national and international organisations. In summary: gathering information regarding the different residency training programmes across the country and trying to improve and homogenise the training conditions.
In Portugal, the number of Psychiatry trainees has been increasing in the past few years. Of a total of approximately 300 trainees that are currently undertaking their residency consisting of a 5 year program, more than 50% have already become members of the Association.
This considerable and growing percentage, which increases the strength of the association and consequently consolidates the representativeness of the trainees’ opinion has been possible throughout the years through: 1) the organisation of various workshops and courses, 2) the establishment of partnerships with various mental health training institutions with proven training quality, and 3) through the organisation of a biennial meeting with a formative purpose that aims to be a comprehensive discussion forum allowing knowledge update in key areas of psychiatry through thematic debates, plenary lectures and workshops with the intervention of national and international speakers of recognised merit.
Maintaining its original purpose to keep up with the trainees’ needs, APIP is currently committed to remedy the perceived flaw of the nonexistent psychotherapeutic training in the residency programme through the creation of a solid backbone training course in psychotherapy which is being designed along with the Institutions Involved in the National Psychiatry Residency training Programme.
Following the above, which is in agreement with EFPT’s mission of enhancing and harmonising standards of psychiatric education and training, APIP has had, throughout the years, the pleasure to actively collaborate with the EFPT including through the presence of some of its members in various working groups, including: the Exchange Working Group, the Psychotherapy Working Group and the Exchange Working Group.
More recently, APIP collaborated with the 23rd EFPT Forum Porto Local Organizing Committee in achieving this ambitious EFPT Forum which will be held in Europe’s best destination 2014, under the brilliant coordination of a former APIP element, Dr. Mariana Pinto da Costa.
Best wishes,
Dr. Sérgio Saraiva, President of the Portuguese Association of Psychiatric Trainees (APIP) (in the picture: middle top)
ANIPIA:
Dear EFPT colleagues and friends,
I am honoured to write a message from our national Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) trainees organisation (Associação Nacional de Internos de Psiquiatria da Infância e da Adolescência – ANIPIA) for this summer’s issue of the EFPT newsletter.
Our organisation encompasses national CAP trainees, and is still a child, as it was founded on 21st July 2011. The ANIPIA was born of the urgent necessity to address the increasing demands of child psychiatry residency.
Born of a strong desire for cooperation, the ANIPIA aims to give voice to the Portuguese trainees and provide them relevant activities, particularly educational ones, research and professional meetings. It also intends to promote better communication networks between residents, as well as to identify specific problems of residents and work to offer adequate solutions. The main purpose of this organisation is the evaluation of the current training programme and the identification of the main problems in order to improve the quality of child psychiatry training. At the moment, all 60 national CAP trainees are members of ANIPIA.
ANIPIA organise an annual scientific meeting for its members. The last meeting was in November 2014, with the theme Therapeutic Modalities in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Workshops have also been organised with different subjects. The next workshop will occur in Lisbon, July 2015 with the theme: How to manage a project – concepts and basic tools. The ANIPIA´s initiatives also focus on the social interaction between its members, for example welcome dinners for the new CAP trainees (as you can see in the photos).
ANIPIA Members – Coimbra, 2015
ANIPIA Members – Lisbon, 2015
I hope that the unique beauty of Oporto and its cultural and historical heritage will provide an ideal environment to enjoy the EFPT spirit during the 23rd EFPT Forum, if you are able to make it! I expect that the scientific and social activities will take place in an enjoyable atmosphere tempered with port wine and that fruitful professional networks for future projects will be created.
Please do not hesitate to contact us at anipedo@gmail.com in case you have any question or in order to develop projects together. You can also learn more about us in www.anipia.pt/ and www.facebook.com/anipiapt.
Best wishes,
Maria Laureano
ANIPIA President
Maria Laureano, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Hospital Pediátrico, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal