Residency Program in Psychiatry

Greetings from the Directors of Residency Education

We are very pleased that you are seeking information about our residency education programs in psychiatry. We provide information about our Adult Psychiatry Residency Program here. Our Triple Board Program, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency and other Mount Sinai fellowships have their own internet information Sites, and you can learn more about them under the Education link above.

Psychiatry is the most interesting and challenging specialty in medicine. We care for those who otherwise would lead lives of agony, with risk of exclusion, isolation and suicide. These illnesses result from complex pathways involving genetic predisposition, the development of mind, cognitive-behavioral traits, and interactions with the multifaceted social and material environment. We now have potent treatments that are constantly being refined in a context of discovery and evolution of new treatments. Our psychotherapies, pharmacotherapies and other biological treatments can literally give life back to our patients. Since our focus is the inner, subjective experience - thoughts, emotions, hopes, memories and self-reflections - we are privileged to know our patients in ways that lead to a deep and fulfilling sense of connection.

We also regard psychiatric education as a great challenge and responsibility. We want to prepare you to understand and treat the many different conditions that are grouped as Mental Disorders. Some might differentiate them from medical disorder. At Mount Sinai, we do not. We aim to teach residents to carefully arrive at diagnoses by closely observing patients, learning about their subjective experience via establishing rapport, and interviewing in ways that help patients reveal their often painful inner lives. We want residents to know how behavior and mental events are linked to that amazing organ - the brain. We have a wonderful partner in the field of neuroscience which is now focused on studying the higher cognitive functions (memories, emotions, decision making) that are dysregulated in our patients. We now have the capability to directly measure brain structure and function in patients both when they are ill and well. We can begin to construct theories of how vulnerabilities develop and how life events and our treatments can interact in protective as well as adverse ways.

At Mount Sinai we are very aware that our program has an ulterior as well as an educational responsibility: To prepare you for a career. We want all residents to gain the knowledge base and clinical skills to practice clinical psychiatry, but we aim for more than that. As in your university studies, we will encourage you to find an area of concentration. We aim for you to graduate with a valid sense of expertise that will merit you a position of distinction when you go on to further training, clinical practice, research or a teaching / administrative position.

The Department of Psychiatry's training programs are located at two centers, The Mount Sinai Medical Center and the James J. Peters VA Medical Center. The two locations provide for experiences with literally all psychiatric disorders, and with all socioeconomic and ethnic / racial groups. This includes important work with returning veterans of the Iraq conflict. Our research programs are similarly broad-based and open to resident participation. Our department is recognized internationally for its groundbreaking psychiatric discoveries. Our research faculty members provide expert didactic teaching and develop new clinical treatments. A recent addition to this tradition of excellence is the opening of a new Brain Disorders Institute led by Eric Nestler, MD. At the same time, our formalized affiliation with the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute - the largest and oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States - and our commitment to psychotherapy training allows us to offer in depth training in the psychotherapies.

We strive to provide an open, stimulating and supportive environment for our residents. Residency education involves hard work, but there is joy and excitement in becoming a psychiatrist. We aim for these years to be happy as well as productive ones.

We look forward to meeting with you in person to share our enthusiasm for the Residency Program in Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Ronald O. Rieder, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry, Vice Chair for Education
Director of Residency Training
E-mail: ronald.rieder@mssm.edu

Daniel G. Stewart, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Co-Director of Residency Training
E-mail: daniel.stewart@mssm.edu