Commentary: general residency training--the first forensic stage.

Abstract

Training in Forensic Psychiatry, as described by Dr. Pinals, requires the gaining of knowledge, expertise, and confidence as part of a process of professional transformation and identification with a new psychiatric role. Training in General Psychiatry does, however, include placing the resident in situations and roles that are either formally forensic in nature, or at least, forensic-like. We will argue that these experiences from general training can be used by forensic supervisors to help ease the resident into the forensic role by building on the resident's existing expertise and making the forensic environment less foreign.