Psychiatry

Duration: 4 weeks

Period offered: All

Enrollment/Period: 2 maximum, upon availability

Prerequisites: Open to 4th year medical students interested in Psychiatry

Opportunities:

• Inpatient Psychiatry
• Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
• Child Psychiatry – Inpatient, with possible outpatient experiences
• Outpatient/Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)
• Addiction Psychiatry

Global Clerkship Goals/Objectives:

Goals:

• Introduce students to the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illness.
• Understand the principles of behavioral medicine and psychosomatic illness.
• Develop skill in interviewing patients, performing a focused physical exam including a mental status examination, and in formulating and supporting a psychiatric differential diagnosis.
• Expand the student’s ability to understand the complex interactions between psychological, physiological and social factors affecting psychiatric illness.

Objectives

At the end of the rotation the student is expected to:

• Conceptualize psychiatric illness using a biopsychosocial model.
• Perform a basic psychiatric interview with formal mental status examination.
• Detail risk factors associated with suicide / homicide / violence and describe appropriate interventions.
• Be familiar with medical illnesses that commonly have psychiatric presentations, including delirium.
• Be familiar with the role of the physician in assessing capacity.
• Elicit diagnostic symptoms associated with common psychiatric disorders, including: depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, psychoses, delirium and dementia.
• Understand symptoms and sequelae of common drugs of abuse and dependence.
• Formulate a bio-psycho-social treatment plan for common psychiatric illnesses.
• Describe pharmacological treatment of common psychiatric illnesses.

Evaluation: Clinical Evaluation

Methods to be used in student evaluation:

• Observation of performance by faculty
• Observation of performance by house officers
• Assessment of write-ups/reports