PGY-3

Residents spend their entire PGY-3 year in the outpatient setting. This training model allows for more continuity of care and allows for greater exposure to our outpatient specialty clinics.

Resident Continuity Clinic

PGY-3 residents expand upon their outpatient continuity care experience which they started in their PGY-2 year. All residents are expected to see many patients on a weekly or possibly twice-weekly basis, to help them develop expertise in different psychotherapeutic (supportive, psychodynamic, and cognitive behavioral) models. All of our faculty members concentrate on teaching residents about the integration of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. Residents receive an hour a week of individual supervision by expert clinicians in each of the following areas: psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and pharmacotherapy.

Addiction Psychiatry Clinic

Residents rotate for a half-day a week in this clinic that focuses on treating adult patients with co-occurring disorders (i.e., a substance use disorder plus one or more psychiatric disorders). Residents are supervised by the director of the Addiction Psychiatry Clinic who has expertise in the assessment and management of patients with co-occurring disorders. This very popular rotation helps augment residents’ training to manage these common psychiatric conditions in the outpatient setting upon graduation.

Women’s Mental Health Clinic

Residents rotate for a half-day a week in this clinic that focuses on the assessment and treatment of psychiatric conditions in women. Residents are supervised by the director of the Women’s Mental Health Clinic. There is a special emphasis on the treatment of pregnant women with psychiatric conditions. Residents review literature on the presentation and treatment of psychiatric conditions in women throughout this rotation.

Outpatient Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic

Residents rotate for a half-day a week in the outpatient child psychiatry clinic. Residents treat children with both psychotherapy and medication management during this rotation. Residents receive direct supervision on their patients by child psychiatrists during their year-long rotation in the clinic.

Community Psychiatry at Heartland Alliance

We have partnered with Heartland Alliance, one of the world’s leading anti-poverty organizations, to provide community-based mental health services to underserved and vulnerable communities across Chicago. Residents rotate for a half-day a week at Heartland Alliance. The organization serves individuals who are homeless, living in poverty, or seeking safety. Heartland Alliance provides wraparound services including mental health counseling, linkages to primary and dental health care, case management, housing, jobs, and justice. Heartland Alliance has a program which provides community-based mental health services for child and adult refugees and asylees. The community psychiatry rotation enhances our psychiatry residents’ opportunities to provide psychiatric care to underserved and vulnerable communities across Chicago. Through Heartland Alliance, psychiatry residents can volunteer to join an assertive community treatment (ACT) team to deliver psychiatric services directly in patients’ homes, residential facilities, and group homes.

Geriatric Psychiatry clinic

Residents rotate for a half-day a week at Rush University in the Geriatric Psychiatry Clinic. During their rotation, residents can expect to treat elders with a variety of problems such as anxiety, depression, mild cognitive impairment, dementia with behavioral disturbances, and grief and bereavement. Residents receive direct supervision by geriatric psychiatrists. Residents prescribe medication and provide supportive psychotherapy as they work with patients and their caregivers to help them understand and cope with these problems. The Geriatric Psychiatry Program is housed within the Geriatric Medicine Clinic, allowing for close collaboration between providers of these two specialties.

Night float call rotation

Night float consists of covering the psychiatric floors, emergency department, and inpatient floors throughout the hospital. Residents typically work six nights in a row from 9 PM to 8 AM. PGY-3s have 2.5 weeks of night float spread out throughout the year. Residents receive back-up supervision from the attending on call. Another resident is always available to come into the hospital to provide back-up support if necessary. The amount of night float decreases each year of training.

Call

PGY-3s provide supervision to PGY-1 residents on weekdays (i.e., buddy call). PGY-3s average 0-1 buddy calls a month over 5 months out of the year. Additionally, PGY-3s work 7 to 8 call shifts on weekends (either Saturday or Sunday) throughout the year. Weekend call shifts are from 8 AM-9 PM. The on call resident covers direct admissions to the inpatient psychiatric units, urgent issues on the inpatient psychiatric units, and all consults to the general medical floors and pediatric units. They may occasionally see consults in the Emergency Department, though ED consults are primarily handled by the paid psychiatry resident moonlighter.