Letter from the Program Director

Greetings! We are honored to introduce you to our Boston University (BU) School of Medicine /Boston Medical Center (BMC) Psychiatry Residency family!

Here at the BU/BMC Psychiatry Residency, we pride ourselves on training astute clinicians who can facilely implement a wide array of treatment options while also creatively addressing social determinants of health, responding adaptively to the cultural needs of each unique patient, critically examining health care inequities, advocating for improved mental healthcare, and advancing clinical scholarship. Staff, residents, and faculty alike have been drawn to our program by the clear mission of providing and promoting exceptional care without exception – it is our collective commitment to the diverse communities we serve.

The Residency Program is sponsored by the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and our primary academic teaching institutions, BMC, and the Department of Veterans Affairs in Boston and Bedford. BMC is a 496-bed academic medical center located in Boston’s historic South End. As the largest safety net hospital in New England, it provides medical care for infants, children, teens and adults, often from our most vulnerable communities. Our affiliations with two Veterans Affairs systems provides access to one of the largest VA networks in the country, which includes The National Center for PTSD, the largest funded VA research program in the USA. Together, our BMC and VA sites lead in addiction research and training and offer additional specialized programs in psychosis, women’s health, geriatric care, and primary care integrated behavioral health. Additionally, our trainees are exposed to community clinics, a private free-standing psychiatric hospital, and Department of Mental Health facilities.

At BU/BMC Psychiatry, we are surrounded by the expertise of both our University and Medical Campus including clinical experts, public health experts, researchers, and innovators. We pull from this vast knowledge to ensure that our didactic curriculum and clinical trainings highlight how psychological and pathophysiologic theories intersect with the real world actualities of our patients. It is in this interaction that we see our residents get involved in scholarly work and advocacy, which we provide elective opportunities to complete. In addition to our robust multi-modality psychotherapy training modules, some residents seek advanced training through local psychoanalytic institutes. Some residents also elect onto additional training pathways including medical education, community-based substance use treatment, and global and cultural psychiatry.

Our department is uniquely invested in multicultural and global mental health as evidenced by our Refugee Mental Health clinic, our Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology, and our Global and Local Center for Mental Health Disparities. Our trainees seeking to further satisfy these interests are welcome to spend time with these centers through direct clinic work or global partnerships that strengthen bidirectional global psychiatric education, bidirectional research, or expanded care delivery. Residents who participate in these programs are uniquely positioned to enhance their understanding of patients globally, which greatly informs the care of patients locally.

Graduates of our program will have seen the breadth and depth of what psychiatry offers, providing them with clarity on their interests and the impact they would like to make. We are thrilled to see their leadership across the country in clinical care, education, research, social justice, and advocacy for all people, and most deliberately for our most vulnerable.

We have much more information to share with you! Please look through our website content for additional details. And when you find that our interests match yours, don’t hesitate to send along your application — the BU/BMC family can’t wait to meet you!