The following is a summary of recent developments compiled by Adult Psychiatry Clinic Director Ellen Haller, MD.
The Adult Psychiatry Clinic (APC) is the primary outpatient training site for third- and fourth-year UCSF psychiatric residents, as well as medical students and some of the psychology fellows. In response to trainee feedback as well as regulatory requirements, the APC has undergone significant reorganization over the past few years. In addition, we have had some wonderful new faculty join the APC team this year.
The clinic's two main components include:
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Specialty clinics: These half-day clinics focus on a particular patient population, either demographically (LGBT, women and geriatrics) or diagnostically (early psychosis, anxiety disorders, OCD, bipolar disorder and depression). The APC has nine different half-day specialty clinics; each does evaluations of new patients plus follow-up medication management care for a population of patients. Every PGY-3 participates in at least one specialty clinic, and PGY-4s can serve as Junior Attendings, meaning that they supervise evaluations and care by more junior residents.
Six of the specialty clinics are sites for the Residency Training Program’s Longitudinal Clinical Experience (LCE) rotation, an innovative new program in its second year. Residents are assigned to the same LCE throughout their four years of training, and once the program is fully rolled out in two more years, PGY-1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s will be working together in each of the LCEs. In addition to playing a key role in residency training, specialty clinics are also a core part of the MS3 psychiatry clerkship experience.
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Continuity clinics: In each half-day continuity clinic, residents are paired with supervising attending psychiatrists. Each clinic includes a preconference during which incoming patients are discussed followed by a mixture of individual psychotherapy and medication management appointments. Residents participate in a multiple different continuity clinics over the course of each week and learn how to treat a diverse adult psychiatry outpatient caseload using multiple treatment modalities. They also participate in multiple weekly small group advising sessions with different foci including interpersonal, cognitive behavioral, and psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. Residents also meet one-on-one weekly with an APC Caseload Advisor and at least one Community Clinical Advisor. The continuity clinics are set-up to maximize residents’ learning experiences, meet regulatory standards, and allow for longitudinal relationships between trainees and patients and trainees and attendings.
The APC also has multiple short-term psychotherapy groups including cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapy.
With great pleasure, I am excited to share a very public welcome to our new faculty who joined the APC as attendings during this academic year. Alexis Armenakis, Weston Fisher, and Alice Huang are all graduates of our UCSF residency program, and Alexis also completed a PGY-5 year as a UCSF geriatrics fellow. Each of them is already actively contributing in multiple teaching roles, and each brings a tremendous level of energy, enthusiasm, and outstanding clinical skills to their new role. Welcome you three!
