Lebanon is a western Asian country with an area of 10 452 km2 and a population of around 4 million (excluding the 10 million Lebanese immigrants worldwide). It has approximately 60 psychiatrists, mostly concentrated in the capital, Beirut, although a trend for decentralisation is currently observed. The number of psychiatrists is steadily increasing as postgraduate training centres have been established during the past decade. There are, however, few sub-specialists, owing to a lack of adequate training programmes.

Training

Undergraduate training

Six schools of medicine offer medical undergraduate education. The 7-year curriculum includes courses on psychology, psychopathology, psychotherapies and general psychiatry. A typical example would be the undergraduate training programme at the American University of Beirut Medical School, where the Department of Psychiatry offers an undergraduate course to ‘Med II’ students and a clinical clerkship to ‘Med III’ students, as well as clinical electives to interns and residents. It also provides training and supervision for psychologists. The course covers:

The rotation also includes seminars on psychopathology, case presentation and discussions, interview techniques and basic psychotherapy, as well as psychopharmacology. Seminars are held daily and are supervised by the faculty members.

Postgraduate training

Psychiatrists go through a 4-year postgraduate training programme provided by two universities. This includes a 1-year rotation on medical wards (with a specific focus on neurology) as well as exposure to child, adult and geriatric psychiatry through in-patient psychiatric wards and out-patient facilities. One of these universities (Saint Joseph University, which, since the 1980s, has been affiliated to the Saint Anne Psychiatric University Centre in Paris, France) requires six research subjects, a university diploma in cognitive– behavioural therapy (CBT) and passing a neuropsychiatry examination in order to grant the specialty certificate; the other requires passing the Arab Board of Psychiatry examination (in its three parts).