The University of Limerick Deanery extends across the Mid-Western counties of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary. Approved centres for acute inpatient care are located in University Hospital Limerick, Ennis Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry in Kilkenny. Community based services are provided through several multidisciplinary adult community mental health teams and specialist services, with a comprehensive range of community based outpatient, day hospital, day centre, outreach and community residential services. General Adult Psychiatry training is situated in a variety of geographical settings, including rural areas and urban settings including those with significant levels of social deprivation and high numbers of ethnic minorities. Specialist training placements are available throughout the region in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatry of Later Life, Intellectual Disability, Rehabilitation and Recovery Psychiatry, Liaison Psychiatry, Perinatal Psychiatry and Adult ADHD. Additional training in Forensic psychiatry is also available locally for interested trainees.

Training Centres / Sub-Specialities

Key Features

• Each trainee is Supervised by a Consultant Psychiatrist who provides formal weekly supervision
• All posts provide on call experience for BST trainees, supervised by a consultant and occasionally a HST trainee. On call is predominately situated in the inpatient psychiatry units, but includes liaison with emergency departments, general hospitals and community residential units.
• Training and experience in delivering ECT is provided in University Hospital Limerick.
• Trainees are encouraged to participate in management activities including engagement in local service development. There are multiple opportunities for committee work, clinical audit and trainee representation locally.
• Across each training centre, training is arranged by tutors, including weekly case conferences, journal clubs and Balint group sessions.
• The Deanery offers and intensive clinical induction course over two days for foundation year trainees
• A fortnightly Day Release programme has been in place for over a decade. These popular sessions focus on formal teaching in psychiatry, however there is an emphasis on areas including professionalism and the philosophical and ethical aspects of psychiatry
• Every trainee is encouraged to engage in audit and research and is afforded the opportunity to present their work at the UL Deanery Spring and Winter conferences.
• The Deanery is closely linked with the School of Medicine in the University of Limerick and hosts final year graduate entry medical students from August to May each year. Trainees are encouraged to participate in formal Case Based Learning tutorials within the School of Medicine in UL.
• There is an active research programme covering multiple areas including, Cognitive Disorder, Forensic Psychiatry, Medical Professionalism, Law and Ethics, Homelessness, Prison Psychiatry and Evolutionary Psychiatry.
• Within this programme, over twenty trainees have achieved research project completion to national/international publication in the last four years.
• In addition, several trainees have successfully completed Higher Diplomas or Masters level courses in Clinical Teaching within the UL framework. There are opportunities for attaining MD and PhD degrees on a range of research topics. Trainees are encouraged to access resources available through UL including library, e-resources and research supports
• The Deanery has published two in house textbooks (Problem Based Psychiatry, Elsevier 2021 and Psychiatry Algorithms in Primary Care, Wiley-Blackwell, 2020) which a number of previous trainees contributed to.

Clinical Exposure

• A comprehensive range of general adult and specialty service placements are available for trainees in the region through the three training centres, including inpatient units attached to University Hospital Limerick, Ennis and Kilkenny hospitals. Outpatient clinics are situated within Community Mental Health Teams dispersed across the catchment area with full multidisciplinary support. Most services also provide clinical exposure through day hospitals, day centres, community residential units, nursing home and domiciliary visits.
• Along with a dedicated Liaison team, there are specialist liaison opportunities through the perinatal and Psychiatry of Later Life teams alongside routine exposure while on call.
• Rehabilitation and Recovery services offer exposure to assertive outreach and dedicated home care teams along with several crisis houses.
• Psychiatry of Later Life services provide opportunities for domiciliary and nursing home visits, community nursing residential centres and memory clinics.
• Child and adolescent services provide clinical exposure through outpatient clinics, clinic-based group programmes and school visits
• Intellectual Disability services provide exposure to clinical care through domiciliary visits, outpatient clinics and residential units.
• The Deanery has one of the few dedicated adult ADHD teams in the country, with access to comprehensive specialist multidisciplinary assessments
• Trainees have the option of accessing specialty training in forensic psychiatry and addictions through rotating to these national specialty posts in Dublin as part of the BST training plan. Locally, there are options for special interest sessions in Forensic psychiatry and addictions psychiatry.
• Several consultants also provide additional training in their areas of interest to trainees under their supervision. These include, forensic psychiatry, addictions psychiatry, ECT, psychotherapy, academic psychiatry and neurocognitive disorders.

Additional Information

As with other Deaneries, trainees commencing the scheme are offered two general adult psychiatry posts in one of the three training centres for their first 2 six month posts. After this foundation year, 6 further posts are allocated in consultation with the vice dean to comprise a mix of posts, across at least 2 training centres, taking the trainee’s individual needs into account. The Deanery has a high retention rate in terms of HSTs returning to the area and indeed a number of graduates from the School of Medicine in UL have completed the majority of their training in the Mid-West to consultant level.

As part of the HSE National Clinical Programme in Dual Diagnosis, the first pilot Dual Diagnosis team in the country is awaiting approval from the Department of Health before the posts are advertised later this year. The posts would include a NCHD in Addiction Psychiatry and subsequently approval will be sought from the College to recognise it as a training post in the future.