Psychiatry
Adult Psychiatry
Adolescent Psychiatry
and Research
300.0 Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
Instructor: Dara Wilensky, M.D.
Location: Boston Medical Center (7th Floor, Suite 7600, Doctor’s Office Building)
Contact: Scott Harris
Telephone: 617 358-7499 Email: scotth@bu.edu
Number of Students: One
Period to be offered: Four weeks (Blocks 9-14 and 17-20)
Description of Elective:
This four week elective in Psychosomatic Medicine with Dr. Wilensky is a core training site for the residency program and the psychosomatic fellowship program. This course offers a consultation-liaison experience, with a focus on clinical work designed to enhance student’s ability to understand and appreciate the psychosocial aspects of medical illness. Emphasis will be placed on the development of interviewing techniques and differential diagnostic styles and increased responsibility for the development of brief treatment strategies. Interested students may choose to focus their clinical work in a particular area of the hospital or with a specific service. In addition, the student will be required to do research in an area of interest involving psychosomatic medicine with the development of a paper and presentation to members of the Psychosomatic Medicine team at the end of the rotation.
This course is not intended solely for those interested in psychiatry as a specialty, but especially for those interested in the areas of general medicine and primary care.
301.0 Advanced Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
Instructor: Larkin Kao, M.D.
Location: VA Boston Healthcare System – West Roxbury
Contact: Scott Harris Email: scotth@bu.edu
Telephone: 617 358-7499
Number of Students: One
Period to be offered: Four weeks
Description of Elective:
Under close supervision, students in this elective will work as integral members of the consultation-liaison psychiatry service at the VA Boston Healthcare System, West Roxbury Campus. Students will evaluate and treat patients in the emergency room and acute medical setting for whom psychiatry consultation is requested. Common consultation requests include suicidality, substance intoxication or withdrawal, psychosis, delirium, depression, and capacity to make medical decisions. Students will work closely with attending psychiatrists as well as psychiatry residents, consultation-liaison psychiatry fellows, and addictions psychiatry fellows. Students will participate in daily teaching rounds and will receive additional teaching through formal didactic sessions. Students will receive individual supervision both at the bedside and in formal sessions. Students will carry up to four patients at any given time and will actively participate in daily patient care. Duty hours will be Monday through Friday, without night or weekend requirements. In addition to daily patient care, students will complete two brief, informal presentations on clinical questions related to their patients, as well as a thirty-minute formal presentation at the end of the rotation on a topic relevant to consultation-liaison psychiatry. The elective will expose students to a wide variety of psychiatric diagnoses, with a focus on how psychiatric issues interact with acute medical illness. By the end of the elective, students will show a nuanced understanding of how to perform a psychiatric consultation in the emergency room or acute medical setting and how psychiatric and medical issues affect one another, along with advanced skill in patient interviewing, oral presentations, and clinical documentation.
303.0 Emergency Psychiatry
Rotation Director: Alison Duncan, M.D. , Alison.Duncan@bmc.org PES Attending Physicians, including Dr. Buczek, Wilensky, Brown, Rashid, Durham and Reid-Varley
Administrative Contact: Scott Harris
- Students should report to the Psychiatric Emergency Service at Boston Medical Center at 0900 on the first day of the rotation.
Telephone: 617 358-7499 Email: scotth@bu.edu
Number of Students: One fourth year student per block
Length of Elective: four weeks
Period to be offered: Blocks 9-20
DESCRIPTION OF ELECTIVE
This elective will take place in the Emergency Department at Boston Medical Center. Students will work approximately five 8 hour shifts a week, under the supervision of psychiatric attendings. In addition, students will work closely with psychiatry residents and social work staff. Students will have opportunities to interview patients, obtain collateral information, participate in disposition determinations, develop treatment plans, and write notes for the patients they treat in the Emergency Department. Teaching will occur on a case by case basis. Students will participate in daily rounds and attend the Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds. By the end of the rotation, students will have developed skills in managing acute agitation, utilizing verbal de-escalation techniques for patients in crisis, conducting in- depth suicide assessments, assessing patients with altered mental status, and recognizing and treating emergent psychiatric conditions.
Electives at Affiliates:
305.0 Addiction Psychiatry
Instructor: John Renner, M.D.
Location: Boston VA Outpatient Clinic
Contact: Scott Harris Email: scotth@bu.edu
Telephone: 617 358-7499
Number of Students: One
Period to be offered: Four weeks
Description of Elective:
This elective will provide students with clinical experience in addiction problems in the outpatient service, a core training site for residents, addiction psychiatry, and addiction medicine fellows. Students will participate in substance abuse treatment with methadone maintenance patients, buprenorphine patients, and alcoholic patients with major psychiatric problems. The major goals of the elective are to improve the student’s understanding of substance use problems, associated personality and emotional disorders, assessment measures, and the behavioral, pharmacological and systems approach to problem management used in this field.
306.0 Acute Psychiatry in Managed Care
Instructors: Carmel Heinsohn, M.D. and attending staff
Location: Bournewood Hospital
Contact: Scott Harris Email: scotth@bu.edu
Telephone: 617 358-7499
Number of Students: One
Period to be offered: Four weeks
Description of Elective:
Bournewood Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital in the community, is a core adult inpatient training site for the residency program. This elective provides students with the opportunity to learn acute inpatient psychiatry, including patient evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment in a multidisciplinary setting. Students will learn about psychopharmacology and short-term psychotherapy management of patients with psychiatric disorders. Many patients are enrolled in managed care programs allowing students to also learn about systems of care, managed care approaches to psychiatric and substance use disorders.
307.0 Adolescent Psychiatry
Instructors: John Hart, M.D. and attending staff
Location: Bournewood Hospital
Contact: Scott Harris Email: scotth@bu.edu
Telephone: 617 358-7499
Number of Students: One
Period to be offered: Four weeks (Blocks 14-20)
Description of Elective:
Bournewood Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital in the community, is a core inpatient adolescent training site for the residency program. This elective is an excellent opportunity to work with adolescents with psychiatric and dual diagnosis disorders in a managed care environment. Students will be members of a multidisciplinary team learning about psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, family therapy, and other treatment modalities. Students will learn about systems of care and the interface between social and educational services for adolescents.