Over the last two years, there has been a high level of cooperation and coordination with the Royal College of Psychiatrists with the view of enhancing the standard of the post graduate training program in psychiatry adopted by the scientific council of psychiatry. Accordingly the Dean of the Royal College Professor Robert Howard came on a visit to Baghdad in July 2009 and since then there has been what we can describe as an endless support and cooperation with the Royal college. With this spirit the college conducted  two weeks professional training course for senior Iraqi psychiatrists in London and in other training centers in Britain during February-March 2010. Many training activities including valuable workshops on different aspects of the training with the clinical supervision, Research methodology, Examinations techniques, Work-Place Based Assessments, and Cognitive Behavioral therapy was conducted in Baghdad and Sulaimaniya by a number of senior academic Iraqi psychiatrists who work in the United Kingdom. The endless support by the Ministry of Health and by HE the Minister Dr Saleh Al-Hasnawi personally has a great impact in making the conducting and success of all these activities possible. In addition there has been a valuable contribution by the International Medical Corporation- IMC with  deep involvement and active role of Dr Sabah Sadik who is in charge of the section of psychiatry in this organization and as  Chairman of the Middle East Division of the Royal College. In the same direction a similar concentrated training activities was held  by the UK Iraqi psychiatrists in Baghdad on 21-26 November 2010 with a complete sponsorship by the Ministry of Health.                                                                             

The new curriculum has been approved by the Iraqi Board Council

The curriculum, in principle, is based on that of the Royal college with necessory differences in order to fit with the regulations of the Iraqi Board and that of the MoHE particularly on the parts of the examinations. The main differences from the previous curriculum include:                                                                                                                               

1- In the clinical training: The first year training is on general adult psychiatry for the whole year. The second year includes training on General psychiatry, General Medicine and Neurology- Four months each, while in the old curriculum the reverse was applied.                                                                                                                                                    

 2- The clinical training involves: clinical supervision, Work place based assessments with special emphasis on the issues of clinical skills and competencies. The assessments are continuous all over the whole year followed by assessment of the annual progress.                   

3- There are three annual lecture courses, the 1st course is over the first training year includes items mainly on basic and some general adult psychiatry. The second course is over the 2nd training year includes items on basic psychiatry, Neurology ,Medicine and General psychiatry. The Third course is over the 3rd training year and includes items on General Psychiatry and psychiatric specialties.                                                                                        

4- The Examinations: There are major changes. The current part I exam. is divided into two exam papers.

Paper 1- is carried  out after the end of the first year and includes the items studied in the 1st annual lecture course.

Paper 2- is carried out after the end of the 2nd year and includes the items studied in the 2nd annual lecture course. While Part II exam, as in the old curriculum is carried out after the end of the 4th year and has two sections: a- Written section is paper 3 and includes the items studied in the third annual lecture course. b- Clinical section - carried out on passing paper 3 and  has three parts -  The CASC part of 4 stations, OSCE as an observed case presentation exam. And Oral exam.

The detailed curriculum is attached and is  implemented from this academic year 2010-2011.