Residency Program in Psychiatry

Didactics

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services

The Mount Sinai didactic experience in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services has been recognized by the American Association of Community Psychiatrists as a model in community psychiatry didactics.

Course Directors

• Craig Katz, M.D.
• Lori Pellegrino, M.D.

Overall Course Goals and Objectives

At the completion of this comprehensive two-year program, starting at PGY-II through the PGY-III year, residents will understand the basic principles of publicly-funded mental health services as they pertain to psychiatry. This includes the social, ethical, legal, and clinical facets of treating psychiatric patients and managing systems of care within the public sector, primarily in community settings. Residents gain appreciation and develop facility with all aspects of emergency psychiatry, including clinical care, administrative elements, medico-legal issues, and safety training. Residents are also introduced to increasingly complex issues in forensic psychiatry. This course will also include an introduction to consult liaison psychiatry and hospital based ethics.

Course Outline

PGY-II | PGY-III

PGY-II

In this introductory year, the course is divided into five modules:

Emergency Psychiatry

• Issues in the Emergency Room
• Suicide and Violence

Consult-Liaison Psychiatry

• Depression and psychopharmacology in the medically ill
• Drug-drug interactions
• Capacity
• HIV and AIDS C/L, Transplant C/L
• Psychiatric aspects of neurological illness
• Death and dying
• Psychotherapy in the medically ill
• Somatic and factitious disorders
• Motivational interviewing in the medically ill patient
• The difficult patient
• Delirium and dementia
• Pregnancy and postpartum

Forensic Psychiatry

• Coercion
• Disability
• Medico-legal aspects of suicide
• Child abuse
• Competence, Guardianship
• Law and psychiatry, Malpractice
• Mock courtroom, criminal and civil
• Health policy and the physician
• Malingering

Hospital Based Ethics

• Autonomy
• Bad news and truth telling
• Surrogate decision making
• Confidentiality
• Double agency
• Professionalism

Administration

• Financing a department of psychiatry

PGY-III

As residents begin to deliver outpatient care, they are introduced to working models of community psychiatry and the skills needed to effect change in their patients' illnesses as they seek recovery within the community. The course is organized into four modules:

Special Populations

• Substance abuse in the LGBT population
• Homelessness and psychiatric services
• MRDD population
• Occupational psychiatry

Community Psychiatry

• Assisted outpatient treatment
• Medicare and Medicaid
• Mental health policy
• Children’s services
• Recovery Model
• Pathways to housing

Cultural / Global Psychiatry

• Asylum
• Adapting ITP for depression in developing countries
• Psychiatric issues in the Islamic population
• Psychiatric services in Iraq
• Disaster psychiatry

Community Based Ethics

• Suicide
• Confidentiality
• Professionalism
• Boundaries