Neurobehaviour rounds and interdisciplinary education in neurology and psychiatry

Increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary medical treatment and education suggests that something valuable has arisen from medical specialization beyond the further development of specialty knowledge: an integration of specialty knowledge that compliments and extends the integrating aspects of the primary care approach to medicine. Several educational models have been described which serve this function. In this paper the authors describe interdisciplinary clinical teaching, and research team linking neurology, neuroradiology, psychiatry and neuropsychology. The team provides neurobehavioural evaluations and sponsors monthly Neurobehaviour Rounds, an interdisciplinary patient conference that is the main formal teaching vehicle for the programme. After the model had been in place for 1 year, eight of nine neurology residents had Residency In-Service Training Examination scores in behavioural neurology that exceeded their overall average scores. This suggests that encouraging neurology residents to see patients through the eyes of different specialists may have contributed to improvement in their performance on a test of interdisciplinary knowledge. A neurobehavioural programme anchored to a formal neurobehaviour conference may encourage interdisciplinary learning within the related disciplines of neurology, neuropsychology and psychiatry.