Training

The Psychological Medicine service serves as a placement site for the Department of Psychiatry's APA-accredited Doctoral Internship Program in Clinical and Community Psychology. Doctoral psychology fellows specializing in Behavioral Medicine train within multidisciplinary teams of medical providers (consisting of physicians, surgeons, nurses, and social workers) and gain valuable experience in the provision of behavioral health consultation, psychological assessment, and behavioral health intervention to a broad range of medically ill patients within the Yale Cancer Center, Yale-New Haven Transplantation Center, and Department of Psychiatry’s Consultation-Liaison program.

Within each of the medical specialties, Behavioral Medicine fellows consult with medical providers and provide psychotherapy to medically ill patients using a combination of behavioral, cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based therapeutic approaches. Fellows also receive specialized training in the evaluation of live liver donors, and participate in the liver transplant program's Donor Advocacy Team and Recipient Review Committee meetings. Within the Yale Cancer Center, fellows spend one-half day per week within the head and neck clinic and receive specialized training in the assessment of high-risk patients and use brief Motivational Interviewing techniques to engage patients in smoking cessation and alcohol reduction services. Fellows also participate in the Sexuality, Intimacy and Menopause (SIMs) clinic where they work closely with a faculty gynecologist and gynecology-oncology surgeon and perform brief behavioral consultations with women who have a history of cancer and whose primary concern relates to sexual functioning, body image, or menopause.

Seminars and Scholarly Project

Behavioral Medicine fellows attend and participate in a range of weekly seminars within the Department of Psychiatry, Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Psychological Medicine Service. Seminars address a range of assessment, intervention and professional development topics. Psychology fellows also have one-half day per week of protected time to pursue and conduct clinical research with a faculty mentor.

Second-year residents are introduced to consultation/liaison psychiatry on both the psychiatric consultation service and the Behavioral Intervention Team which provide psychiatric assessment and collaborative treatment to medical and surgical patients at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Residents work closely with attending faculty in a setting with a limited case load. By the end of the two-month rotation, residents will have developed a better understanding of the interface between psychiatry and medicine, the medical causes of psychiatric symptoms, use of psychotropic medications in the medically complex, the fundamentals of pain management, alcohol and substance withdrawal and psychiatric issues in patients with a wide variety of illnesses including pre- and post-transplant. The Psychological Medicine Service is a rich source of ideas for a future CASE project.

The Service can also provide a position for a PGYIV Chief Resident, offering additional clinical, administrative and leadership experience and opportunities.

Our service is comprised of two parts: the traditional Consult Liaison service (CL) and the Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT). The CL service covers the adult Intensive Care Units, Surgical Units, and Obstetrics. The Behavioral Intervention Team covers the medical floors in the East Pavilion, and is a proactive, multidisciplinary team.

Medical students are an integral part of our teams, addressing issues such as mental status changes, mood and anxiety disorders, psychosis, delirium, dementia, substance abuse, medical decision-making, suicidal ideation, personality disorders, agitation, and response to medical illness.

Medical students are paired with a resident/fellow and round daily with the entire team. Over the course of the rotation, medical students will gain the skills to feel comfortable seeing consults independently, and will gain psychiatric knowledge to utilize in their chosen specialty.

The goal of this first-year one semester practicum is to provide the student with an opportunity to develop clinical skills with adult clients and their families. Students will apply skills including holistic physical and mental health assessment, formulate differential diagnosis, plan and implement developmentally appropriate psychiatric nursing interventions, and evaluate interventions and outcomes.

Emphasis is placed on application of a variety of population- specific assessment skills and use of differential diagnosis, and a beginning utilization of pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic treatment methods with individuals, groups and families.