Each hour of supervision focuses on two to three cases. Each intern also attends a two-hour per week diagnostic clinic in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic. This experience is designed to provide intensive supervision of diagnostic work involving children and parents. Each clinical encounter is preceded and followed by group discussion with the supervising faculty member. At the completion of each 2-3 week evaluation, the diagnostic findings and recommendations are made to the family.
Interns often accept the patients for treatment if appropriate.
The Inpatient Rotation includes diagnostic assessment, inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment, and inpatient testing. During the Inpatient rotation, interns have approximately 5 hours of outpatient contacts per week. The primary function of the unit is to provide comprehensive diagnostic assessment and treatment for patients with severe psychiatric disturbance who often come from severely dysfunctional families. Treatment consists of short term, crisis oriented interventions that are focused on helping the patient and family stabilize, identifying precipitants and stressors related to hospitalization, learning alternate coping skills, and preparing for discharge. Hospitalization is viewed as an acute care phase in treatment, with the purpose of facilitating continued therapeutic services for the patient and family after discharge.