Psychiatrists can now formally specialise in youth psychiatry, a subspecialty focused on 12-25-year-olds, after their college launched a new two-year training pathway last week.

Until now, psychiatrists with a specialist interest in treating youth had been forced to choose either the child and adolescent or the adult psychiatry training pathways, according to NSW psychiatrist Dr Daniel Pellen.

“The separation of training and care for young people has traditionally been — and remains, in a lot of places — split at the age of 18,” Dr Pellen told the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ annual congress in Melbourne last week.

“Psychiatrists are trained to deliver care in that age range, and although after fellowship they might choose to follow a youth pathway, they couldn’t choose training in that area. Until now.”