DESCRIPTION

During this six week rotation, students participate in practical clinical work, individual supervision, seminars, case conferences, and simulation center classes. In their daily work on inpatient, outpatient and/or consultation-liaison services, psychiatry residents and staff supervise students. The Department strongly emphasizes the biopsychosocial model, integrating biological, psychological and sociocultural knowledge to understand behavior and disease.

The development of clinical interviewing and diagnostic and treatment planning skills are central to the clerkship. Particular attention is given to disorders often seen in the international focus of military medicine. The psychiatric knowledge, skills and attitudes taught are essential in every specialty of medicine.

Each student meets weekly with a senior clinical preceptor for review and discussion of case histories. Mandatory seminars, case conferences and simulation center classes consider both practical and theoretical aspects of emotional disorders.

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Department of Psychiatry is to provide the training and education necessary to produce compassionate and clinically and scientifically competent uniformed physicians. This is accomplished by providing education in the biological, behavioral, and social sciences that serve as the basic underpinning for the practice of medicine in general, and psychiatry in particular. Both clinical and didactic instruction occur. Students are also introduced to the basic research tools used to investigate the biopsychosocial aspects of illness in order to train them knowledge generation so that they can maintain their knowledge base throughout their career. Departmental instruction and research are coordinated with other basic science and clinical science departments to facilitate student learning and to assure efficient use of all medical school resources.

OBJECTIVES:

The goal of the clerkship is to facilitate the student’s development of skills in the observation, evaluation, management and understanding of patients in emotional distress. This includes: a) exposure to a wide variety of psychiatric patients, and learning about the proper diagnosis and treatment of selected psychiatric patients; b) learning how to perform complete physical and psychiatric examinations, with emphasis upon the mental status examination; c) developing skills in psychiatric and neurological examinations and achieving a basic understanding of the doctor-patient relationship as it pertains to psychiatry. The development of examination skills, both in listening and speaking, is a major component of this goal.

By the end of the clerkship, the clinical clerk should be able to:

1. Conduct a psychiatric evaluation of an emotionally disturbed or mentally ill patient.

2. Write up a psychiatric evaluation in a clear, concise manner to include the chief complaint, psychiatric, social, developmental and medical histories.

3. Perform and write up a physical examination, including a complete neurological and mental status examination, of a patient who is emotionally disturbed or ill.

4. Write up and discuss a differential diagnosis based on information obtained by historical interview, physical and mental status examinations.

5. Write up and discuss a plan for further evaluation and tests.

6. Write up and discuss recommendations for initial treatment or referral.

7. Assess suicidal, homicidal and dangerous behavior and potential.

8. Discuss the interactions of predispositions, precipitants and illness in a given patient.

9. Discuss the interaction of the biological, sociocultural and personality systems in the production of disease in a given patient.

10. Discuss the doctor-patient relationship in terms of the working alliance and possible transference phenomena for a given patient.