Committee Members: Henry Weisman, M.D.
Director, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
and Psychiatric Emergency Service

Richard Kaplan, Ph.D.

Mary Casey Jacob, Ph.D.

Mark Litt, Ph.D.

Pamela Skerker, APRN

Mary Anne Zeh, APRN

Duration: One Month

Months Offered: All months

No. Of Students: 1 or 2

Prerequisite: Third Year Curriculum

Contact Person: Henry Weisman, M.D. at 679-4661; (FAX) 679-4077.

Description of Clerkship:

This elective focuses on the interface between mental health and the other areas of medical practice. Using inpatient, outpatient and crisis intervention models, students will learn medical aspects of psychiatry, including diagnosis of neuropsychiatric and medical-psychiatric syndromes, behavioral neurology, principles of behavioral medicine, and psychopharmacology in the medical-surgical and primary care settings. Students will also develop expertise in working with the patient-caregiver interaction, decisional capacity determination and clinical applied ethics. They will learn brief psychotherapeutic interventions using cognitive-behavioral and crisis intervention models. Diagnostic groups include cognitive disorders (including delirium, dementia and focal neuropsychiatric syndromes) mood disorders in the medical setting, substance abuse, intoxication and withdrawal, adjustment disorders, somatoform disorders, and the interface of personality disorders and medical care. Specialty areas include general internal medicine, intensive care, geriatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, oncology, bone-marrow transplant, cardio-pulmonary medicine and dermatology, surgery and orthopedics.

Goals:

Students will acquire diagnostic skills in medical-psychiatric illness.

Students will develop knowledge in psychopharmacology inpatients with comorbid medical illness.

Students will acquire exposure to the psychiatric manifestation of neurologic illness.

Students will develop expertise in understanding the culture and functions of hospital and primary care settings.

Format:

The student has an active role in seeing patients, obtaining histories, performing diagnostic interviews and in developing treatment and disposition plans. Students will attend rounds, participate in didactic experiences, seminars and tutorials and will present their patients to Dr. Weisman in daily rounds. Students will also do intakes and will follow a limited number of patients in the medical-psychiatric outpatient program.

Teaching:

Teaching is clinical and didactic. Clinical teaching consists of teaching rounds with the attending on a biweekly basis, weekly oncology-psychiatric rounds and Emergency Room rounds. Didactic teaching includes psychiatry grand rounds, neuropsych conferences, case presentations to attending and APRN staff as well as tutorials and supervised readings.