Consultation-liaison psychiatry: a new psychiatric subspecialty in Switzerland.

Although psychiatry has a long tradition in Switzerland, C–L psychiatry is a newcomer. The continuous reduction in recent years of the number of beds in psychiatric hospitals favored the development of C–L services. The results of a survey of C–L psychiatry showed that in Switzerland C–L services are provided in general hospitals, even in the small and rural ones [1]. An important step was achieved recently with the recognition of C–L psychiatry as a subspecialty of adult psychiatry. The following summarizes some of the milestones of this process. In1931, thefirst training requirements for the specialty of psychiatry were given out by the Swiss Medical Chamber. The revision of 1964 stipulated a psychotherapeutic training for obtaining the title of psychiatry specialist. In 1985, psychosomatic medicine and C–L psychiatry were introduced into the psychiatric training curriculum [2]. The 1998 revision defined for the first time the knowledge, skills, and attitudes the resident should acquire during the facultative rotation to C–L psychiatry. In parallel, a first loose gathering of Swiss C–L psychiatrists started in 1990 in the form of a study group. In 2001, the Swiss Society of Consultation–Liaison Psychiatry (SSCLP) was established. In the following year, the SSCLP was adopted as an affiliate society by the Swiss Society of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (SSPP). In 2004, the executive board of the SSCLP concluded to seek the recognition of C–L psychiatry as a subspecialty. The development of Swiss C–L training requirements for general psychiatry residents as well as for C–L psychiatry candidates has been influenced by international developments, such as the recommendations made by the UEMS, the WPA and the EACLPP [3–5], and by the official recognition of the subspecialty in Journal of Psychosomatic Research 71 (2011) 429–430