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Introduction

The Psychiatry Residency Program is a fully accredited program leading to eligibility for certification by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Applications are taken through the AAMC's Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), and all positions are filled through the National Residency Matching Program or through pre-match contract offers.

The Department of Psychiatry also has training programs for art therapy students, clinical psychology students, and psychology interns, which increases opportunities available for psychiatry residents during their training.

General Description

The four-year residency training program in general psychiatry exposes residents to all aspects of the practice of psychiatry. The training sites provide a variety of experiences, as well as a very broadly mixed population base. Sentara Norfolk General Hospital is a Level I trauma center, which has a psychiatric inpatient unit and active psychiatric consultation service. The Veterans' Affairs Medical Center in Hampton is a Dean's Committee hospital with excellent psychiatric experience provided on the inpatient unit, on the geriatric psychiatry service, the emergency department, the Mental Health Clinic, and the neurology service. Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg is the oldest public mental health hospital in America; it provides experience in forensic psychiatry. The Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth is the oldest operating naval hospital in America, and offers our residents training in child psychiatry. Local community mental health centers provide experience in managing a wide variety of child and adolescent outpatients in the public sector. These diverse experiences provide well-rounded training for providing psychiatric care into the new millennium.

Curriculum

The first year of residency consists of six months of inpatient psychiatry, two months of neurology, and four months of internal medicine. The second year consists of three three-month rotations in inpatient psychiatry, consult/liaison psychiatry, and emergency psychiatry, plus one month rotations each in child psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, and substance abuse.

The entire third year is an outpatient year. Third-year residents practice in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center outpatient clinic and the Department of Psychiatry's outpatient clinic. The fourth year includes experience as a senior resident on an inpatient service at one of the main teaching hospitals, as well as rotations in geriatric psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, substance abuse, child psychiatry, and further elective rotations. Each resident maintains his/her own long-term psychotherapy cases throughout the residency. Managed care experience, essential in today's practice of psychiatry, is also part of our residents' training experience.

The program is aimed at developing medical, psychiatric, diagnostic and therapeutic experience and skills. Our approach is broadly based and emphasizes all three segments of the biopsychosocial model. Special attention is given to analytic theory in modern psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy in addition to cognitive behavioral psychotherapy and supportive psychotherapy. Neurobiology and psychopharmacology are emphasized daily during rotations as well as in didactics.

Formal individual and group supervision are provided by the faculty, qualified members of the professional staff, and part-time faculty consultants. At least two to three hours of supervisory time per week are provided, with additional time as needed.

Each resident is expected to be involved in some form of psychiatric scholarly activity. The resident may choose to start or be involved in a research project, or develop two case reports demonstrating the addition of new information into clinical case materials. Support is available through psychiatric supervisors and research assistants, as well as by our research coordinator, who holds a doctoral degree in education.

There are over 70 departmental and community faculty members. Clinical training is supplemented by departmental Grand Rounds, an ongoing lecture series, ward rounds, workshops, and clinical conferences at each site, and by the strong support from faculty and from the program director, and the advantages of working within a major academic setting which is actively growing. Resident life is enhanced by reasonable call schedules, scheduled social activities and retreats, all of which promote a feeling of camaraderie among residents. The EVMS Psychiatry Residency is truly an exceptional program in which to train.

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Requirements to apply to the Psychiatry Residency Program:

For more information regarding applying to the residency program