Psychiatry Residency

The first year is based on the belief that an excellent psychiatrist must first be an excellent physician. Rotations will include: 

• Primary Care: four blocks 
• Neurology: two blocks (inpatient and outpatient) 
• Adult inpatient Psychiatry: five to six blocks
• Short-Call: this is a part of our on-call system for residents. During PGY1 we pair our interns with a senior resident so that they can observe and later perform admissions, cross-cover and presentation skills while a senior resident is side-by-side with them. 

By the end of the first year, residents will have foundational knowledge in medicine and neurology, methods of psychiatric assessment, an interdisciplinary approach, and different methods of psychiatric treatment. 

Example PGY 1 Block Schedule

Second-year residents will receive training in diverse inpatient and outpatient settings. These will include adult, geriatric, child and adolescent and consultation liaison psychiatry services. Second-year residents also participate in night float, where they cover the inpatient units on call, overnight. 

By the end of this year, the resident will have achieved competency in psychiatric assessments, multimodal treatment of the mentally ill across the lifespan and a comprehensive understanding of the biopsychosocial approach to mental illnesses.  

Example PGY 2 Block Schedule

The third year is entirely devoted to ambulatory psychiatric care. Our residents attain mastery of skills of psychiatric assessments and treatments in the outpatient settings and work with a diverse patient population, including community, veterans, college students and homeless persons. 

Residents have opportunities to work in different specialty clinics, including geriatrics, OB/GYN and addictions. Experience is provided in various treatment modalities, including medication management, case management, short- and long-term psychotherapies and manualized group therapy. Residents are also assigned a psychotherapy supervisor to meet with weekly. 

During this year, residents are given more responsibility and autonomy, but always have faculty supervision. 

Outpatient clinic assignments can be individually tailored to meet the career goals of residents. 

30% At Salem VA Medical Center (MHC and Therapy)

70% CRMH/CNRV (BFC, CHA, Hollins, Radford, Rescue Mission, high-risk OB)

Senior residents have a diversified experience in fourth year that covers the essential skills that will enable them to transition to independent practice as well as the opportunity to select elective educational experiences to best complete their training. 

Fourth-year residents will complete two sub-attending months on the inpatient units and Consult/Liaison, where they will run the treatment of acute mentally ill patients. Residents spend a half day to one day per week in the adult outpatient clinic at VAMC. Residents will have the option to choose their electives at CRMH or VAMC for the remaining blocks.

CRMH

PGY 1s will have short calls with direct supervision by senior residents the first six months of training. After eight months of training, they will have 24-hour call. 

PGY 2s will do one-to-two-night floats. Monday-Friday from 7:45pm-7:45am.

Salem VAMC

PGY 1s-3s will do 2 short calls and 2 long calls (12 hours).

PGY 4s will do 2 short calls at Salem VA Medical Center.

Residents have the opportunity to moonlight both internally and externally. Moonlighting is offered to PGY 3&4s that are in good standings.