I was struck by the program for the upcoming May Congress of the College. There is a section run by the Faculty of forensic psychiatry that appears to be exclusively related to the psychiatry and psychology of offenders, there seems to be nothing for those of us who do civil assessments. There have been discussions about the curriculum for the faculty and it appears that civil assessment will be regarded as an optional extra. Presumably an optional extras for those who have done the offender based course but what about most of us who got into civil assessments midway through our career from doing clinical psychiatry and have no interest in doing offender based psychiatry. I have always felt that the Faculty of Forensic Psychiatry is a real hybrid with an unknown number doing the civil work who seem to be pretty much disregarded and the other section dealing with offender based psychiatry where there are academic chairs, academic journals and so forth with institutions and a range of options for trainees. The options for trainees in the civil area are a didactic course and some mentoring by those of us who do the work, hardly satisfactory. I had hoped that the Institute for Safety, Rehabilitation Research and Compensation (the ISRRC) funded by the Victorian WorkCover Authority and the Victorian Transport Accident Commission would have some focus on our area but my expectations have not been met.
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