Psychiatry Residency - Curriculum

Gain increasing knowledge, experience and autonomy through our carefully designed four-year program.

Our psychiatry residency program provides a collegial, supportive, nurturing and safe environment for learners at all levels.

We lean on our collective experience as practitioners and educators — undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate — to guide you through a training experience of the highest quality, with a focus on continuous improvement and the pursuit of excellence.

Our behavioral health service line emphasizes and promotes the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to care and service delivery. The environment is one of professionalism, collaboration, integration and respect for all.

As a team, we strive for continuous improvement in safety, service needs and quality of experience for patients, staff and everyone involved, aligning with WellSpan Health’s mission: “working as one to improve health through exceptional care for all, lifelong wellness and healthy communities.”

Our residency program leadership, along with service line colleagues and the health system at large, designed a multifaceted curriculum to prepare you for a fulfilling and successful career in psychiatry, now and in the future.

Our program utilizes the service continuum and dedication of our talented team members to ensure that residents have a broad clinical experience with diverse populations, communities and levels of care.

Program leadership will continue to work with faculty and trainees to make sure that our didactic curriculum supplements direct clinical experience, to give you the foundation you need to be a successful psychiatrist in the future.

The program will build your knowledge, skills and experience in the following areas:

diagnosis and assessment
treatment and aftercare planning
theory and application
experience with a diverse patient population of all ages, representative of a broad spectrum of diagnostic groups
patient safety and quality improvement
approaches to research and scholarship
service delivery models across various levels of care within hospital, clinic and community settings
expert supervision by board-certified psychiatrists, licensed psychologists and clinicians (in their areas of expertise)
peer mentoring
teaching and supervisory roles
advocacy for individuals and behavioral health

The focus of the first year is to provide clinical experiences essential for the development of skills and basic knowledge necessary to practice psychiatry in the acute care setting while laying the foundation for subsequent training years.

First-year rotations afford you opportunities to learn and work in various levels of care and with diverse patient populations to promote the development of communication, team and leadership skills, knowledge and experience.

inpatient family medicine — 2 months
ambulatory family medicine — 2 months
neurology — 2 months
emergency psychiatry — 1 month
consultation-liaison psychiatry — 1 month
inpatient psychiatry — 4 months

The second year aims to build upon skills and knowledge acquired in the first year by exposing you to a wide range of patient presentations and settings that demonstrate acute and focused interventions.

You’ll rotate through additional blocks of inpatient adult psychiatry, emergency psychiatry and consult liaison psychiatry. During these rotations, you’ll take increased leadership roles by leading treatment teams and mentoring junior residents.

Rotations in adult day hospital psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry (with at least one month of inpatient child and adolescent psychiatry) and community and addictions ambulatory psychiatry round out your second-year experience.

These rotations serve as introductions to specialized populations and psychiatric care. Through these rotations, you’ll begin to gain increased confidence in caring for acute psychiatric patients while consolidating your identity as a psychiatrist.

As a second-year resident, you’ll also be introduced to ambulatory psychiatry through a half-day continuity clinic which focuses on long-term medication management and psychotherapy.

inpatient psychiatry — 2 months
emergency psychiatry — 1 month
consultation-liaison psychiatry — 1 month
community and addictions ambulatory psychiatry — 2 months
adult day hospital psychiatry — 2 months
child and adolescent psychiatry — 2 months
electives — 2 months

The third year primarily consists of ambulatory psychiatric experiences. These occur in a variety of settings with the aim of expanding and strengthening your psychiatric abilities.

You’ll have a home clinic where you’ll provide general outpatient psychiatric care. You’ll also rotate through clinics where specialized pharmacotherapies and psychotherapy are emphasized, such as geriatric psychiatry. Continuity clinic, initiated in PGY-2, continues throughout the third year.

Additional third-year experiences include new patient evaluations, various modalities of individual and group therapies, and elective opportunities.

med management follow-ups
psychotherapy
new patient evaluations
geriatric psychiatry
10% electives

In the fourth and final year, you’ll strengthen your leadership and advocacy skills, master and consolidate your knowledge, work with specialized populations, explore career interests and pursue academic projects while preparing for graduation and the transition from training to practice or fellowship.

Fourth-year residents continue in outpatient clinics and learn the valuable skill of handing off care of long-term patients.

med management follow-ups
psychotherapy
new patient evaluations
50% electives

During this first year, didactics supplement experiential learning to help you develop a strong foundation of knowledge, skills and the principles of high-quality patient-centered care. We’ll deliver a series of didactics for all interns.

Topics include, but are not limited to, introductory series on:

principles of patient-centered communication and care
DSM diagnostic criteria
psychopharmacology
psychotherapy models (supportive, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, psychodynamic)
formulation
evidence-based medicine
ethics
social determinants of mental health
roles within the health care team
levels of care and systems

Each PGY class will have their own series of didactics, tailored to their level of training, for one half-day per week each year.

Each year, the didactic series will touch on progressively more in-depth and nuanced aspects of core topics that include, but are not limited to:

principles of patient-centered communication and care
clinical diagnosis and assessment
neuroscience of psychiatry
psychopharmacology
psychotherapy
patient safety and quality improvement
evidence-based medicine
scholarship
social determinants of mental health
ethics
understanding the healthcare landscape
medical humanities
professional development
advocacy
leadership

Various all-resident didactic sessions and community events will occur throughout the year, to allow for shared learning, peer teaching and community building among all classes.

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Psychiatry Residency - Curriculum

Gain increasing knowledge, experience and autonomy through our carefully designed four-year program.