During the outpatient experience, residents work with patients suffering from chronic severe mental illness at the Community Psychiatry Program, which is our local mental health center and is owned and operated by UAB. This is unique among academic medical centers to have a mental health center owned by an academic psychiatry department.
PGY 1
Rotations
• Inpatient Internal Medicine (may substitute one month of Pediatrics) - 3 months
• Emergency Medicine - 1 monthNeurology - 2 months
• Psychiatry - 6 months (includes 3-4 months of Adult inpatient Psychiatry, 1 month of Consult-Liaison Psychiatry, 1 month of daytime Emergency Psychiatry; some residents will have 1 month of Addictions)
Didactics
• Mechanisms in Psychiatry (survey course of psychiatric diagnosis & treatment)
• Clinical Skills (patient interview followed by discussion of the mental status exam,
differential diagnosis, & treatment plan
• Cultural Competency and Healthcare Disparities
PGY 2-3
Over the past 2 years, we have shifted the outpatient experience from the PGY3 year to begin in January of the PGY2 year. The rationale for this change is to break up the high acuity hospital rotations earlier in training. This also gives residents the opportunity to be exposed to outpatient psychiatry earlier in training. After completing 12 months of continuous outpatient training, residents return to hospital rotations in January of their PGY3 year with the benefit of a year’s worth of outpatient training, which leaves them better prepared to handle the complexity and acuity of patient care in the hospital.
Rotations - January (PGY2) to December (PGY3)
Outpatient
• Faculty Consultation Clinic (Psychopharmacology/Continuity Clinic)
• Psychotherapy Clinic
• VA Clinic
• Community Psychiatry Program (UAB’s Community Mental Health Center)
Rotations - July-December (PGY2) & January-June (PGY3)
Psychiatry Subspecialty Services
• Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry
• Consult-Liaison Psychiatry
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Addictions
• Emergency Psychiatry
PGY2 Didactics
• Introduction to Psychotherapy
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
• Mechanisms in Psychiatry (survey course of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment)
PGY3 Didactics
• Advanced Psychodynamics
• Multimodalities in Psychiatry (A survey of treatments not covered elsewhere
in the curriculum)
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Mechanisms in Psychiatry (survey course of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment)
PGY 4
Rotations
Residents can choose 6 month blocks of month-long experiences or elective experiences. Month-long experiences include Adult inpatient Psychiatry, Consult-Liaison Psychiatry, Emergency Psychiatry, Addictions, Child and Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Outpatient Psychiatry, and Veterans Affairs Consult-Liaison Psychiatry.
Elective Clinics and experiences include:
• Treatment Resistant Depression
• First Episode Psychosis
• Geriatric Psychiatry
• Addiction/Medication-Assisted Therapy Clinic
• Palliative Care
• Sleep Clinic
• Mental Health Court
• Community Psychiatry/Assertive Community Treatment
• Clinical Skills Scholars (observed interviews with medical students)
• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
• Addictions
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensics
• Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) credentialing
• Student Health Clinic
• Veterans's Affairs Outpatient
• Neuroradiology
• Neuropsychological Testing
• Memory Disorders Clinic
• Scholarly Activity
• Psychotherapy
• Weight Loss Medicine
Additional experiences identified and approved by the institution, including external electives. Previous highlights have included Space Psychiatry with NASA Aerospace Medicine, Prison Psychiatry at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, and Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS).
Didactics
• Transition to Practice
• Board Review
All PGY levels
• Scholarly Activity and Quality Improvement Course
• PRITE review (in-service exam taken by psychiatry residents across the country)