Description
This fellowship is ACGME accredited and is part of the University of Michigan Integrated Geriatrics Fellowship Program, which includes trainees from Geriatric Psychiatry, Medicine, Dentistry, Neurology and Family Practice. The fellowship provides broad-based clinical experience in inpatient, outpatient and nursing home settings, with a unique multidisciplinary emphasis, in an extraordinarily rich academic environment. A one-year clinical track fellowship is available for those interested in gaining expereince and certification in this area. A two-year research track fellowship, which provides the same clinical experience but has, in addition, a research training component designed to prepare the trainee for an academic career; research opportunities are available in basic, clinical and health services research.
The overall goal of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship is the provision of the highest quality subspecialty training in geropsychiatry to residency-trained psychiatrists, at the PGY-V and PGY-VI levels, in preparation for ABPN certification with Added Qualifications in Geriatric Psychiatry and for a career as a subspecialist in this field. The major components of this experience are (1) development of expertise in the psychiatric care of the elderly patient, and (2) experience in teaching and research in the field, sufficient to prepare the graduate when, appropriate, for a career of leadership in academic geropsychiatry.
These goals are achieved through (a) supervised clinical training, involving inpatients and outpatients, in both traditional psychiatric settings, as well as multidisciplinary settings, in collaboration with faculty from related disciplines; (b) structured didactic sessions covering such topics as biological and psychosocial aspects of normal aging; assessment and treatment of psychiatric disorders in the elderly; the neurology and neuropsychology of aging, diagnosis and management of medical problems in geriatric patients; interactions between medical and psychiatric illness in the elderly; statistics and research design; (c) multidisciplinary research and clinical conferences involving faculty and trainees from a variety of disicplines in medicine as well as other disciplines within the broad field of gerontology; (d) supervised research experience in a project, either clinical or preclinical, relevant to geropsychiatry; (e) experience in didactic and clinical teaching of medical students, residents and other health care professionals and (f) supervised experience in administrative aspects of academic geriatrics.