Rotations & Experiences

Post-Graduate Year One:

Inpatient Psychiatry - The Institute of Living
A required, full-time, three-month rotation. This rotation provides the beginning resident their core educational experience on a short-term acute care unit, providing a high quality of patient care. Treatment consists of short-term individual and couples/family interventions and pharmacologic management. An average caseload consists of four patients.

Inpatient Psychiatry (Biopsychosocial Rotation) - The Institute of Living
A required, full-time, two-month rotation. This specialized inpatient training experience gives beginning residents ample time to work with their patients under the supervision of very experienced inpatient clinicians. Residents gather an extensive psychiatric history, produce a weekly biopsychosocial formulation, participate in group psychotherapy and study the inpatient milieu. The caseload consists of two patients. Residents meet with their patients daily for one hour or more.

Addiction Rotation - Rushford
A required, full-time, one-month rotation. This rotation offers residents the opportunity to learn about addiction psychiatry across the continuum of care. Trainees will manage detoxifications, participate in and observe inpatient and outpatient addictions groups, and conduct treatment entry assessments as well as follow-up visits. Residents treat patients in the detox and rehabilitation settings. Attending supervision and case-based teaching is provided by board-certified addiction psychiatrists. Additional elective time possible in PG-4 year.

Neurology - Hartford Hospital
A required, full-time two-month rotation. Residents have the opportunity to see patients with a variety of interesting neurologic problems. This primarily consultation experience includes daily case discussions, attending teaching rounds, and weekly neuro-radiology, EEG and grand rounds conferences. Residents follow an average of two to three cases and see at least one new case in consultation daily.

Primary Care Medicine - Hartford Hospital/Connecticut Children’s
A required, full-time, four-month clinical rotation. This is an excellent opportunity to learn internal medicine and/or pediatrics in a supportive, multidisciplinary setting. Interns are supervised by advanced residents daily and by the attending physician in regularly scheduled teaching rounds. The average caseload consists of eight to 12 patients.

Post-Graduate Year Two:

Inpatient Psychiatry - The Institute of Living
A required, four-month, full-time rotation scheduled in multiple shorter blocks. This rotation provides an excellent educational experience on a short-term acute care unit providing a very high quality of patient care. Treatment consists of short-term individual psychotherapy, pharmacologic management and couples/family intervention. Residents are given increased autonomy to develop leadership and teaching skills in the inpatient setting. The caseload consists of five patients.

Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry - Hartford Hospital
A required, full-time, two-month rotation. This service provides an excellent educational experience on one of the nation’s busiest consultation/liaison services. Residents learn both emergency and short-term evaluation and management of physically ill patients in a full-service, tertiary-care teaching hospital. Residents see an average of two new consultations each day and carry, on average, a service of eight to 10 patients.

Child and Adolescent Services - The Institute of Living and Connecticut Children's
A required, two-month, full-time rotation. Residents evaluate children and adolescents in a variety of settings. They participate in the assessment and treatment of general outpatients at the Institute of Living's Gengras Child Guidance Clinic and on the child inpatient psychiatric unit. Residents also provide consultation services to medically-admitted patients at Connecticut Children’s free-standing 200-bed children's medical hospital. With supervision, residents see patients individually and with their families, and learn the foundations of family-centered treatment.

Geriatric Psychiatry Rotation - The Institute of Living
A required, full-time, two-month rotation. Residents treat patients across the continuum of geriatric care on a busy geriatric service. On the geriatric inpatient psychiatric unit, residents see patients with a wide range of conditions where they engage in brief therapy, psychopharmacologic management, and family interventions. At the geriatric outpatient clinic, they provide initial evaluations and follow-up care on a weekly basis. Residents also spend time regularly in Interventional Psychiatry providing ECT. Additionally, residents conduct competency evaluations and provide outpatient consultative treatment to patients on home visits and in nursing homes.

Emergency Psychiatry Service - Hartford Hospital
A required, full-time, one-month rotation. In the specialized Hartford Hospital Psychiatric Emergency Department, residents conduct initial behavioral health assessments, and develop diagnostic impressions, initiate emergency treatment regimens and carry out disposition planning. Residents also facilitate further medical work-ups when indicated, general liaison with medical Emergency Department staff, and management of patient de-escalation in the Emergency Department.

Elective Rotation - Institute of Living 
A full-time one-month rotation. Residents can get further experience in the Hartford Hospital Emergency Department, on the Consultation Liaison Service at Hartford Hospital, or on one of the specialized inpatient psychiatric units. Residents can also do electives in Forensics consultations, or part-time work in integrated behavioral health care, child & adolescent psychiatry, and research.

Long-term Psychotherapy Experience
A required twelve-month experience. Residents begin their exposure to long-term psychotherapy with this experience in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Residents carry two outpatients and receive 1-hour weekly individual psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision.

Post-Graduate Year Three:

Adult Outpatient Psychiatry - The Institute of Living, Psychiatric Outpatient Services
A required, twelve-month rotation. Residents gain significant experience in long-term treatment. An eclectic faculty provides supervision of pharmacologic, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, couples/family, and group therapies. Both the clinic and faculty provide broad cross-cultural experience. The rotation also offers an excellent opportunity for multidisciplinary treatment.

HIV Ambulatory Clinic (Embedded psychiatry clinic) - Community Care Clinic, Hartford Hospital
A required- part-time (one half-day per week) twelve-month rotation. Residents gain experience with a medically-complex HIV+ patient population who are primarily from the surrounding urban area and who may experience insecurity of food, housing, and consistent medical care. Residents work collaboratively with infectious disease medical specialists and provide therapy,  psychiatric medication management, through practicing embedded integrated behavioral health care and elements of community psychiatry.

Post-Graduate Year Four:

Inpatient Psychiatry, Service Chief - The Institute of Living
A required, full-time (90 percent), six-month rotation. The inpatient chief serves as a junior attending, performing the customary clinical, educational, and administrative tasks of the service attending under the attending’s direct observation and supervision.

Adult Outpatient Psychiatry, Service Chief - The Institute of Living, Adult Psychiatric Outpatient Service
An elective, full-time, six- to 12-month rotation. This is an outstanding opportunity for advanced residents to learn administrative and supervisory skills in an ambulatory setting. It also provides in-depth, broad exposure to a diverse patient population. The chief resident is responsible for the coordination and administration of all clinical activities in the Outpatient Department for PG-2 through PG-4 residents. The chief resident continues to carry at least five hours of outpatients, including two long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy patients.

Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry, Service in Chief - Hartford Hospital
An elective, full-time (90 percent), three- to six-month rotation. Residents have the opportunity to provide Consultation/Liaison services in Connecticut’s largest tertiary referral center. Residents develop their liaison skills and define a specialized area of medico-psychiatric expertise. The resident averages three new cases per week as an individual; two per day as supervisor.

Palliative Care and Psycho-Oncology Rotation - Hartford Hospital
An elective, full-time (90 percent), four- to six-month rotation. Residents work with patients confronting terminal illness and perform comprehensive evaluations that address the physical, social, psychological, and spiritual aspects of subjective suffering. Residents will work in the context of an interdisciplinary team and learn how psychiatrists can provide a vital service to terminally ill patients.

Clinical Geriatric Psychiatry - The Institute of Living
An elective, full-time (90 percent), four- to six-month rotation. This provides an excellent opportunity to treat patients across the continuum of geriatric care on a busy geriatric service. Residents can tailor the setting(s) of their experience and become qualified in electroconvulsive therapy. An average caseload consists of 10 to 12 patients per week, with involvement in evaluations and consultations for an additional five to six patients a week.

Combined Clinical and Research Geriatric Psychiatry - The Institute of Living
An elective, full-time (90 percent), six-month rotation. Residents spend part of their time in one of the Clinical Geriatric psychiatry settings, including the geriatric inpatient unit, geriatric day treatment program and outpatient geriatric psychiatry practice. Another portion of time is spent participating in geriatric research at The Braceland Center for Mental Health and Aging. An average caseload consists of six to eight patients per week, plus additional consultations and off-site evaluations.

Professional Day Treatment Program - The Institute of Living
An elective, full-time (90 percent), six-month rotation. This is an excellent opportunity to learn psychiatric care of the usually high-functioning individual in a multidisciplinary setting. Residents learn about and treat individuals with character disorders, as well as perpetrators and victims of trauma.

Crisis Intervention - Hartford Hospital and The Institute of Living
An elective, full-time (90 percent), one- or two-month rotation. Residents participate in educating their PG-1 and PG-2 peers by co-leading seminars in emergency psychiatry and crisis intervention. Residents treat patients in brief (one- to eight-session) crisis intervention and stabilization treatment. An average caseload consists of eight to 10 patients.

Research - The Institute of Living and Hartford Hospital
An elective, full-time/part-time (50 to 90%), three- to six-month rotation.

Possible Electives

Block and Rotation Schedules