Department of Psychiatry

Welcome to the University of Kentucky general psychiatry training program! I am very proud to be the General Psychiatry Chief Resident for 2008-2009 and believe strongly in the strengths of our program. I am excited by your interest and hope you will take a closer look at all we have to offer.

At UK you are trained to be a good clinician. You will graduate competent in both psychotherapy and medication management. The program focuses on the biopsychosocial model in formulation which teaches you how to develop comprehensive care plans and prepares you for virtually any practice environment where you will be an important component of a treatment team. Pass rates on both the written and oral American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology exams have been 100% in the past 3 years and speaks of our commitment to and excellence in education. All of this is accomplished in a supportive program with a family feel among both the residents and faculty.

During the first 2 years, you complete your inpatient, consult/liaison, and emergency psychiatry rotations. These rotations occur at 4 different sites, including the main UK Hospital campus, the UK/Samaritan campus, the VA hospital, and the local state hospital. This ensures a diverse patient population and exposure to a number of different psychopathologies. During the first year, you concentrate on becoming proficient in supportive therapy. This is accomplished with the guidance of the inpatient psychiatry attendings who watch live therapy as well as taped sessions and provide feedback. You also have an attending supervisor during the first year who you meet weekly with to discuss a variety of issues, including patient care, recent articles, or even emotional concerns. The faculty are concerned with you as a person - they want to make sure that while progressing as a psychiatry resident you are also happy and healthy. During the second year, you expand on psychotherapy training by seeing a weekly therapy patient at the UK student mental health clinic. This gives you an opportunity to start developing other therapy techniques, and you are also given another hour of weekly 1:1 supervision to help in your management of this case.

During the last 2 years, you complete your outpatient psychiatry rotations and have the opportunity for elective time in areas of special interest. Electives can include more ECT or forensic exposure, or research time to name a few. The outpatient rotations occur at a variety of sites including both the UK outpatient, UK student health clinic, and the Bluegrass community mental health centers.

Throughout the 4 years, learning, advocacy, service, and research are promoted. There is teaching at clinical sites as well as protected time during didactics and supervision. Residents are encouraged to become advocates of mental health, and participation can vary from attending the NAMI walk to serving as chair of the Assembly Committee Members-in-Training of the APA. Residents are also advocates for the program. There is a resident representative from each year that helps the chief and residency director address issues. Residents are encouraged to attend meetings of the residency education committee to help guide the direction of our program. Depression screening days and rotations at Shepherd’s House, a residential rehab program, stress the importance of service. Research opportunities are abundant, and there is a research requirement. The Vice Chair of Research, Dr. Catherine Martin is dedicated to helping residents find a project of interest and partnering them with the appropriate faculty. She helped me become involved in a Parkinson study.

Of course, residency shouldn’t be all work and no play! Lexington is a wonderful city to live in with a number of exciting things to do whether it is catching a performance of Shakespeare at the Arboretum, gallery hopping at the Downtown Arts Center, watching the thoroughbreds race at the beautiful Keeneland Race Course, or hiking at the Natural Bridge or Red River Gorge. Lexington has a number of great restaurants and shops, and with a population of 270,000, I think it is the perfect size. Please check Lexington out at www.visitlex.com.