The psychiatric chief residency: a preliminary training experience in administrative process.

Drawing on their experience, the authors explore the opportunity for learning administrative process that is available to the psychiatric chief resident. They categorize six models of the psychiatric chief residency and document two of them, the ward chief and the interface chief, as providing particularly rich administrative experiences. Although the chief resident's administrative experience is only a preliminary one, it can be a first step in solidifying his identity as a clinician-executive.