Psychiatry core clerkship
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Acceptance into the elective is by application only.
All applications must be submitted through the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities™ (VSLO®)
The Division of Psychiatry at Geisinger offers a six-week rotation in inpatient, outpatient and consultation psychiatry. Our division provides care for pediatric, adult and geriatric patients from rural and community settings, with a true mix of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. We provide comprehensive psychiatric care that includes medication management, psychotherapy both individual and group, and other somatic treatments.
The rotating medical student will be integrated into our services by becoming active in the daily care of our patients. Medical students will be expected to work up and manage a cohort of psychiatric patients, which would include conducting patient interviews, following medical management, intervening with families, providing supportive psychotherapy, documenting evaluations and progress in charts, and coordinating care with outpatient providers. The rotation also offers opportunities to assist in facilitating partial hospitalization and group therapy, observe electroconvulsive therapy and neuropsychological testing, and examine substance use disorder treatments.
Specific educational goals will include:
Mastery of the patient interview as part of psychiatric assessment, competency at performing and documenting a thorough mental status examination, familiarity with applying various psychiatric diagnoses, comfort with common somatic and therapeutic modalities of treating psychiatric disease, capability to perform necessary bedside cognitive testing, competency at formulating and presenting psychiatric cases, development of teaching and researching skills, and appreciation for liaison relationships between providers across specialty fields of medicine.
The rotating medical student will be integrated into our services by becoming active in the daily care of our patients. Medical students will be expected to work up and manage a cohort of psychiatric patients, which would include conducting patient interviews, following medical management, intervening with families, providing supportive psychotherapy, documenting evaluations and progress in charts, and coordinating care with outpatient providers. The rotation also offers opportunities to assist in facilitating partial hospitalization and group therapy, observe electroconvulsive therapy and neuropsychological testing, and examine substance use disorder treatments.
Goals & Objectives
The overall educational objective for the rotating student is to be immersed in the various facets of a psychiatric practice, while learning the fundamentals of psychiatry including diagnosis and treatment of common psychiatric disorders as well as the art and science of psychotherapy and ancillary modalities. The student will appreciate mental illness in the context of a biopsychosocial model, with attention to cultural and societal factors in the lives of psychiatric patients and their families. There will be emphasis on the interface between psychiatry and other fields of medicine, making the rotation vital to the education of future doctors entering any field of primary care or specialty practice.Specific educational goals will include:
Mastery of the patient interview as part of psychiatric assessment, competency at performing and documenting a thorough mental status examination, familiarity with applying various psychiatric diagnoses, comfort with common somatic and therapeutic modalities of treating psychiatric disease, capability to perform necessary bedside cognitive testing, competency at formulating and presenting psychiatric cases, development of teaching and researching skills, and appreciation for liaison relationships between providers across specialty fields of medicine.