Residents are active participants in the multidisciplinary treatment of individuals with severe, persistent and recurrent mental illnesses. The hospital has an active professional education program and is a training site for medical student clerkships. Residents receive experience with a treatment population served by public sector mental health services, including psychoses, mood disorders, chemical dependency and personality disorders. Outpatient Each resident is required to spend one continuous year full-time in the psychiatry outpatient clinic. Supervision is provided by the outpatient faculty, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.
Residents see patients, children and adults, individually or in group therapy.
Didactics focus on a variety of theoretical and therapeutic models relevant to outpatient treatment. Continuity clinics are weekly half-day clinics in which all residents participate throughout their residency. This experience exposes the resident to patients from rural settings and familiarizes them with the operation of a mental health center. Partial Hospitalization Program A service rotation is required at Chestnut Ridge Day Hospital, a partial hospitalization program serving patients of all ages who manifest a variety of serious mental illnesses. Residents observe the developmental stages and learn how stressors, illness and loss effect each stage.