Psychiatric recruitment is facing a crisis. changes to immigration rules have exposed the uk’s dependence on international medical graduates to fill psychiatric training posts. in 2011, only 78% of the 478 core trainee year 1 (ct1) vacancies were filled in england and wales. this is not a new problem, with reports on recruitment problems dating back to the 1970s. urgent action is needed across the entire continuum of medical training to make a career in psychiatry more attractive. in the uk, all newly qualified doctors must complete the 2-year generic foundation programme before embarking on specialty training. this transitional phase is important in informing career decisions. shah et al reviewed experience in scotland and found that by doing a psychiatry placement, foundation doctors become much keener to pursue psychiatry as a career, with 16% of foundation year 2 (fy2) doctors placing it as their first choice, compared with 6.8% of foundation year 1 (fy1) doctors who were yet to undertake their psychiatry placement. they found that foundation doctors’ concerns about psychiatry included the perceived poor prognosis of patients, the lack of scientific basis and the standing of psychiatry among doctors and the public. doctors in foundation year 2 who had experienced psychiatry were more positive about patients’ prognosis than those in year 1 who had had no exposure to psychiatry. however, it is important that foundation psychiatry placements are well structured and supervised. goldacre report that experience gained through the completion of postgraduate jobs was more important for influencing career choice in other specialties than psychiatry at the end of the first postgraduate year but was of equal importance at the end of the third year. they suggest that this difference is likely caused by the lack of early years’ psychiatry experience. lowe & rands also conclude that the provision of programmed postgraduate training uk foundation schools is inadequate, suggesting that there are far too few foundation posts in psychiatry. this retrospective cohort study investigates whether there is a relationship between a psychiatry placement in the foundation programme and appointment to core psychiatric training