Clinical Clerkship

The Psychiatry Clerkship is a five-week practical experience in general adult psychiatry, where the development of clinical interviewing, diagnostic, and treatment planning skills are central to the clerkship. Our psychiatry clerkship provides an opportunity to better understand human behavior on many levels.

For many medical students, this 5-week Psychiatry Clerkship may be the only time specifically dedicated to acquiring knowledge and skills for managing patients with behavioral and psychiatric conditions, which include biological, social, and psychological stressors that need to be addressed. Every patient our graduates will meet for the rest of their careers, regardless of specialty, will likely have their health affected by their own biology and genetics, upbringing, education, current stressors, and lots of other factors. Additionally, as USU graduates, our students may be the only physician for thousands of miles. Knowing how to approach patients with a lifetime of concerns will require psychiatric knowledge and a solid approach for assessing, recognizing, and managing them, to include suicidal thinking, risky behaviors, and other psychiatric emergencies. 

Students rotate at 8 globally dispersed clinical sites: three in the National Capital Area (NCA), and others in Hawaii, San Diego, San Antonio, Ft. Hood, and Coastal Virginia. 

Students learn under the supervision of military and civilian psychiatrists, interns, and residents while “on rotation.” All students spend clinical time on psychiatric inpatient wards and psychiatric consultation-liaison (medical-surgical) services. Training is focused upon learning how to develop a  bio-psycho-socio-cultural approach to understanding and caring for patients, with particular attention to disorders seen in the military environment. Students also spend some time learning in substance treatment centers, psychiatric emergency rooms, and acute psychiatric assessment outpatient clinics.

In addition to daily clinical clerkship work with onsite faculty supervision and didactics, students have weekly preceptor meetings outside of their clinical setting with experienced medical educator, board-certified psychiatrists. Preceptor meetings offer students individualized, longitudinal teaching and feedback with in-depth, one-to-one presentations and discussions of clinical cases. Students also improve their interviewing skills by interviewing standardized, simulated patients weekly, receiving formative faculty, simulated patient, and peer feedback about their performance. Students also have access to the USU clerkship CANVAS website, where daily and weekly practice review quizzes, readings, and didactic materials are provided. 

 PSYCHIATRY CLERKSHIP DETAILS: 

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PSYCHIATRY CLERKSHIP LOCATIONS:

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC)

Naval Medical Center, San Diego NMCSD)

Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth (NMCP)

San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC) 

Tripler Army Medical Center (TAMC)

Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center (CRDAMC)

DC Veterans Administration Hospital (DCVA)