Mental health professionals seem to have a curiously ambivalent attitude towards work. On the one hand, it is generally accepted that the experience of unemployment is often associated with severe social and psychological distress. On the other, we seem reluctant to strive to provide work for those patients who have the greatest social and psychiatric disabilities and for whom work, in all its forms, may have the greatest benefit. I don't wish to speculate on the psychological roots of this ambivalence, although I suspect that it stems, at least in part, from the way in which we all feel about our own jobs. However, there are other reasons why the concept of work has always sat uneasily within the context of psychiatric services.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (1986) recommends that psychotherapy be part of training in general psychiatry. The College suggests weekly specialist supervision with two individual patients for at least one year.

The natural grouping of training rotations in psychiatry into those based on a central University Teaching Hospital and those in a peripheral location invites comparison between the two groups. Training perspectives in two neighbouring schemes, one in each category, have been explored recently (McWilliam & Morris, 1988). It was noticed that, although styles differ, resulting clinical competence is comparable. An important part of clinical training is out-of-hours experience. For approval of a rotational scheme, experience of on-call duties and emergencies is necessary (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1987). We were interested in comparing on-call duties in two different types of scheme, one in Sheffield, the other in Chichester.

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the development of psychiatry in the Arab countries. Several reports have dealt with psychiatric problems in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (Al-Issa & Al-Issa, 1970; Kline, 1963; Dubovsky, 1983). Two general reviews have also dealt with major psychiatric research in the Arab Middle East (El-Islam, 1982; Racy, 1970). However, the countries surveyed have been under British and American influence and tend to follow the Anglo-Saxon psychiatric model. Little attention has been given to North African Arab countries which follow the French and franco-phone approach to psychiatry.