Psychiatric Residency Program

Upon completion of East Alabama Health's new Center for Mental Health in 2025, the Psychiatric Residency Program will allow physicians to gain clinical experience and medical expertise in providing psychiatric care. Residents matched with the program for 2025 will begin their term on June 23, 2025.

The clinical rotations and accompanying didactics are built around the requirements of ACGME and the recommendations of the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology for board examination. Here is an outline of the clinical rotations and overview of accompanying didactics.

PGY 1

Internal Medicine (inpatient and outpatient clinic) - 4 months

Neurology (inpatient and outpatient clinic) - 2 months

Adult inpatient Psychiatry - 6 months

PGY 2

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - 3 months

Consultation Psychiatry - 2 months

Emergency and ICU Psychiatry - 1 - 2 months

Geriatric Psychiatry - 2 months

Community Psychiatry - 1 month

Substance Abuse - 1 month

Elective - 1-2 months

PGY 3

Outpatient Psychiatry (East Alabama Psychiatric Services and Auburn University Student Counseling Center) - 12 months

PGY 4

Team Leader, Adult Psychiatry - 2 months

Team Leader, Consultation Psychiatry - 2 months

Electives - 8 months

Training Overview

Training sites include East Alabama Medical Center and East Alabama Center for Mental Health (inpatient psychiatric center), East Alabama Psychiatric Services (outpatient services at the East Alabama Center for Mental Health), Auburn University Student Counseling Center, and East Alabama Mental Health Center (community mental health center).

Lectures start out with a “basics” seminar in the initial months of the PGY 1, which covers the essentials of psychopharmacology, treatment planning, laws covering involuntary admission, crisis intervention and de-escalation, etc. Thereafter, many of the didactic sessions are rotation-specific. For example, sessions focused on adult psychopathology are covered during the adult inpatient rotation; conditions pertaining to the range of overlapping medical-neurologic-psychiatric conditions are covered during the consultation rotation, etc. Subjects which span all areas, such as human development, health and well-being, journal club, psychiatry & law, grand rounds, and other special topics are covered in sessions attended by all residents PGY 1 through 4. In this way, teaching is specific to the clinical setting of the resident’s current rotation, and is in both small and large group settings.

To stimulate conversations about the interface between psychiatry and society, field trips will be planned to regional sites such as the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, and our own Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art on the Auburn University Campus.

In addition to time spent in team meetings, each resident will have at least one hour of individual supervision and one hour of group supervision per week.