Educational Activities

Combined All-Resident Experiences

Grand Rounds – A weekly Department-wide conference during the academic year. Residents have an opportunity to talk with the speakers. 

Journal Club – A monthly presentation designed to build evidence-based knowledge.

Program Directors Lunch – Monthly meeting with the Program Director.

Psychotherapy Teaching

Psychotherapy knowledge and training is a core component of the training mission. Our curriculum unfolds over the four years allowing residents to broaden their understanding of the field and of the patients we serve.

Didactics:

Psychotherapy didactics start in your intern year with a basic introductory course as well as a basic psychodynamic course with a focus on inpatient and CL units. The curriculum includes a progressive four-year psychodynamic theory course including dynamic formulation, advanced psychoanalytic theory, and psychodynamic pharmacology. In the PGY2 and PGY3 year there are regular didactics in family therapy with live supervision of intakes and cases as well as didactics covering Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), trauma-informed therapies (CPT and EMDR), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), ISTDP, Supportive Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Human Development, cultural formulation and ethnic psychology.

Electives are possible in the PGY4 year including in hospital-based family work and an advanced guided psychoanalytic reading elective for residents.

Clinical Experiences

• Start early - In your PGY2 year you’ll pick up your first individual adult psychotherapy patient under group supervision with a second cased added halfway through your PGY2 year. In your PGY3 year you will spend one day a week in the psychotherapy clinic seeing five cases a day.
• Variety of cases - In your PGY3 year you will carry one relational case (couple/family) with additional supervision on this case by marriage and family therapists who also work in the clinic alongside residents.
• Case Conferences - As a part of your training in the PGY3 clinic you’ll have one protected hour each day for case conferences. At the start of the academic year these are siloed by discipline, but for the final three quarters they are blended with the marriage family therapy (MFT) trainees for cross-disciplinary learning. In these conferences you’ll learn how to present a case, ask a clinical question and be asked to present a related article. You’ll also hear different therapeutic perspectives and viewpoints from other trainees and supervisors.
• Mini-Courses - In the PGY3 clinic we start each day with a 30-minute mini courses which is designed to deliver clinically oriented and implementable content bringing the theory of your didactics to life for use that day in session with patients. There are reading and summary handouts as well as additional resources. 42 weeks of education are provided and over 460 pages of handouts and worksheets taught and reviewed. Topics include covering psychodynamic techniques, cognitive behavioral therapy, schema therapy, supportive therapy, motivational interviewing, interpersonal psychotherapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavioral theory, motivational interviewing, and basic group theory, systemic countertransference and organizational enactment.
• If not fast-tracking into child-adolescent fellowship, there is the option to continue in the psychotherapy clinic in the PGY4 year where depending on schedules you may be able to see cases twice a week and practice higher-frequency psychotherapy.
• End of day group supervision of your cases by your clinic supervisor covering the cases seen that day within the clinic.

For more information on psychotherapy didactics visit the curriculum page. 

Mentorship/Supervision

PGY-1 and PGY-2 residents have a preceptor with whom they meet weekly (PGY-1 residents only during psychiatry rotations), and PGY-3 and PGY-4 residents have a therapy supervisor with whom they are expected to meet weekly.  In addition, residents can choose to have a professional/academic mentor to help with career development.  The Program Directors are happy to help you connect with a mentor as you wish.

Family Therapy

Family therapy supervision occurs in the context of the seminar at the end of the second year, and in the seminar and practicum in the PGY-3 year.  Additional psychotherapy supervision occurs with the resident’s preceptor and with service-based attendings.

The Resident as Teacher

Often the best way to learn is to teach.  All residents supervise medical students throughout the curriculum.  In addition, residents are mentored in providing feedback to medical students in a laddered experience – that is, the PGY-2 residents provide feedback to medical students and are mentored in doing so by the PGY-4 residents, who in turn are mentored by a faculty member. Furthermore, opportunities exist to develop lectures for local medical and college students.  Residency didactics contain sessions on teaching and supervising.

Quality Improvement

It is important that residents learn about Quality Improvement (QI), the framework used to systematically improve the way care is delivered to patients.  An important basis for QI work is the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, an iterative process.  Residents are expected to participate in a QI project during their residency. URMC has a robust Unit-Based Performance Program (UPP), with unit-based teams run by clinicians. Residents can participate in a UPP team over at least one year should they wish.  In addition, residents participate on Incident Review Committees and in Root Cause Analyses.

Scholarly Project

Each PGY-4 resident is expected to prepare publication-quality scholarly paper or poster. This work may be based on the resident's own research, innovative project, or scholarly literature review.  It is important for residents to share their knowledge with others, so this scholarly effort is presented at the Department’s annual Poster Day held each spring.  Residents are especially encouraged to submit their work for publication or poster presentation at the national level.