Tracks

Clinical Educator Track

The goal of the Clinical Educator Track is to prepare residents to take on academic and educational leadership roles. We aim to give residents access to both the theoretical knowledge and the practical training necessary to be leaders in the field of academic medicine. The track is specifically designed for residents who intend to pursue clinician educator and/or academic administrative careers after graduation.

Residents apply for the Clinical Educator Track at the beginning of the PGY2 year. Selected residents work with a faculty mentor to develop an educational project designed for medical students or residents. Projects are scholarly – that is, they are set up to generate or test hypotheses regarding effective educational interventions. Each resident graduating from the track will have completed a project and will have presented a poster or participated in a workshop at a national conference or will have submitted a paper for publication. Residents in the track may set aside elective time in the PGY4 year for their educational projects, and are eligible to receive travel funds for presentations at academic meetings.

 


Shuchi Kapoor, DO, former psychiatry resident, discusses the importance of cultural competency in psychiatry. She also describes educational opportunities for residents and fellows, what led her to join the Clinical Educator Track, and her Clinical Educator Track project.

Community Psychiatry Track

In 2011, we began the Community Psychiatry Track, a PGY4 experience designed to foster the development of residents interested in working with people with severe mental illness. One resident per year is accepted into the Community Psychiatry Track.

Residents’ clinical experience in this track consists of the usual PGY3 Community Psychiatry rotation and seminar series. During the PGY4 year, each resident spends two half-days per week at Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT), an assertive community treatment program for the severely and persistently mentally ill in Madison. The resident becomes an integral part of the PACT treatment team, carrying his/her own caseload of medication management patients and collaborating with other members of the interdisciplinary team. The Medical Director of PACT provides daily supervision of the resident’s clinical cases.

PACT first began as a demonstration project to both implement initial research findings of Mendota researchers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and to further investigate new approaches to providing integrated, long-term treatment to persons with severe and persistent mental illnesses. Since its inception in the 1970s, as well as today, the mission of PACT has been to develop, provide, and investigate innovative mental health treatments, with a recovery-oriented focus, for persons who have not had optimal treatment responses to more traditional forms of treatment. PACT currently provides services to approximately 130 clients with severe and persistent mental illness, most of whom are residents of Dane County. Interdisciplinary staff includes nurses, social workers, psychologists, and a psychiatrist.

The goals of the residents on the Community Psychiatry Track are to:

  • Acquire clinical expertise in caring for the seriously and persistently mentally ill in the community.
  • Gain a comprehensive appreciation of the challenges, including those relating to social functioning, physical and psychiatric health, and day-to-day community functioning, faced by the severely and persistently mentally ill.
  • Develop an understanding of the importance of and skill in serving as a member of an interdisciplinary team in caring for the seriously and persistently mentally ill.

Public Health Track

In 2013, we obtained funding to expand the residency from 8 to 9 residents per year, which in turn has allowed us to create the Public Heath Track. The goal of the track is to train psychiatrists who are prepared to address the mental health needs of an increasingly diverse population across the State of Wisconsin. The Public Health Track (PHT) will include clinical experiences supervised by psychiatrists across Wisconsin.

Residents on the Public Heath Track will be able to:

    • Provide mental health care to an increasingly diverse patient population, demonstrating compassion, integrity, respect for others and sensitivity to differences.
    • Demonstrate competence in working in community-based treatment programs across the state.
    • Provide mental health care to patients at remote locations using telemedicine technology.
    • Identify systems issues in clinical care and provide recommendations as to how to address these issues.
    • Recognize disparities in mental health care at individual, community and state levels.
    • Advocate for improvements in the mental health system across the State of Wisconsin, including advocating for patient access to community and system resources.
    • Recognize and appreciate the unique issues facing individuals with mental illness in rural areas and in other underserved areas.

The following experiences are available for PHT residents:

  • Addiction Psychiatry at La Clinica in Friendship
  • Ambulatory Family Medicine at High Point Clinic in Lancaster
  • Ambulatory Family Medicine at the Prairie Clinic in Sauk City
  • Community Psychiatry at Columbia County Human Services in Portage
  • Community Psychiatry at Green County Human Services in Monroe
  • Inpatient and Outpatient Psychiatry at the Marshfield Clinic
  • Inpatient and Outpatient Psychiatry at Memorial Medical Center in Ashland
  • Telepsychiatry to Waupaca and Tomah via the VA
  • UW Hospital Telestroke Network

 

Rebecca Radue, MD, a former resident discusses the formative experiences that motivated her to pursue the Public Health Track.

All tracks fulfill American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology requirements for certification in general psychiatry.

Residents interested in a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship, either at UW or elsewhere, start at the PGY1 level and finish at the PGY3 level. They apply for a fellowship at the start of the PGY3 year.

Lisa Clement, former resident in the Clinical Educator Track, explains what she enjoys about the mentoring opportunities within the residency program.

Brendon Nacewicz, MD, PhD, former resident, describes what led him to pursue a career in neuropsychiatric research, and why he chose UW for his residency, particularly the opportunities available at the HealthEmotions Research Institute.