PGY 4 residents may spend six weeks on the service for their elective. During this rotation, they supervise and teach PGY 2 residents as well as medical students. Clinical teaching by faculty is an important aspect of daily attending rounds, individual clinical supervision and weekly case-review conferences. Problem-based seminars are conducted twice per week and cover the fundamentals of psychiatric and neuropsychiatric diagnosis and treatment in the consultation setting, psychosomatic medicine, biopsychosocial case formulation and crisis intervention. Although residents are encouraged to begin building an outpatient caseload starting in PGY 1, this aspect of residents' training is emphasized in PGY 3, with additional blocks of elective time available in PGY 4.
Residents also gain practical clinical experience with group, family and couples therapies.
While rotating through the Outpatient Psychiatry Program, residents participate in all ongoing educational and academic activities while providing clinical care under close faculty supervision. They may use their elective time for additional training in this area. The use of elective time is quite flexible, and, with the training director's approval, residents may create electives to suit their educational needs. Allegheny General Hospital's Department of Psychiatry provides a full range of clinical services, including outpatient, partial hospital, inpatient, school, community and consultation-liaison settings. In addition, the Allegheny General Hospital Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents, a nationally recognized clinical research program, offers unique educational experiences working with traumatized children.