summary After years of preparatory work radical changes are about to be made in the training programmes for psychiatrists and several other medical specialists. Programme development has been influenced by trends in society such as the shifting proportions of men and women in salaried jobs and household chores. This article describes the content of earlier training programmes and shows how societal trends have affected the programmes. One of the principal proposals for changing the training is to shorten it and give it a bachelor-master structure with a 'common trunk', containing material that is applicable to a number of different specialisms. Live observation, live supervision, evidence-based medicine and organisational aids are all considered to be part of this 'common trunk'. Psychiatry's specific contributions to the new programmes consist of training therapy and a standardised biopsychosocial assessment known as the intermed.