PGY-1 Rotations
The PGY-1 year includes four months of internal medicine and two months of adult neurology at Chester County Hospital. This six-month block provides a foundation in medical care and is scheduled as one continuous rotation.
The six-month block of psychiatry in PGY-1 combines a variety of rotations at Friends Hospital. PGY-1 residents spend two months rotating at the Friends Hospital Crisis Response Center for emergency psychiatry and four months on two different inpatient units – one acute adult unit and one unit designed for transitional age youth.
While on medicine/neurology, residents do not attend psychiatry didactics, but have exposure to medicine and neurology didactic curricula. Given our emphasis on resident education, we repeat the entire six-month PGY-1 didactic curriculum so that all PGY-1 residents engage in the same educational program, whether from July through December or January through June. Residents have monthly process group and other departmental activities that maintain group cohesion during the time on medicine and neurology.
PGY-2 Rotations
Residents in the PGY-2 year rotate through a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings. Three months are spent at Coatesville VA on an inpatient service where residents are engaged in all aspects of management of psychiatric inpatients with an emphasis on PTSD and co-occurring substance use and other psychiatric illnesses. Residents have a three-month rotation in consultation-liaison psychiatry at Phoenixville Hospital, including opportunities for telepsychiatry, during which residents provide psychiatric consultation to a variety of sites under supervision. A one-month emergency rotation at Phoenixville Hospital consolidates the ability to provide psychiatric evaluation and triage.
Residents rotate for two months at Caring Together, a unique addiction psychiatry service providing treatment to patients with substance use disorders and their families.
Residents return to Friends hospital for two months in the PGY-2 year for inpatient rotations. Residents will gain experience in child and adolescent psychiatry on the adolescent inpatient psychiatry unit at Friends.
Residents will rotate for one month on the geriatric psychiatry unit at Tower Health-Pottstown Hospital.
PGY-3 Rotations
The PGY-3 year is spent entirely in the outpatient setting at the departmental outpatient clinic in Center City Philadelphia. Outpatient caseloads are monitored to insure a balanced group of diagnoses and diversity of treatment types.
PGY-4 Rotations
Residents in the PGY-4 year continue half-time in ongoing care of their outpatients. For four months of the PGY-4 year, residents spend half time on inpatient "chiefships" in which senior residents return to inpatient units in an advanced role to provide clinical care to patients as a team leader in addition to educational supervision for junior residents and medical students. Eight months of the PGY-4 year is spent on electives, at half-time commitment. Residents may choose to return to any previous PGY-1 or PGY-2 site for further experience as a senior resident. We also offer electives in electroconvulsive therapy, sleep medicine, pain management, neurology, research, education, administrative psychiatry, neuropsychological testing, managed care administration and tailor-made electives based on individual clinical interest.