Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Columbia - Director's Welcome
Welcome to the Prisma Health/University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Program.
Our program offers comprehensive training in the compassionate mental health care of older adults.
The elderly are the fastest growing segment of the US population, requiring health care professionals with specialized training. Geriatric psychiatry offers the opportunity to work with and contribute to the welfare of a deserving population, while offering exciting opportunities for advocacy and professional growth. Geriatric psychiatrists are in high demand nationally because they are uniquely trained to meet the demands of the growing older adult demographic.
Our program began in 2007, building upon a legacy of training excellence in psychiatry that began in 1963 under the auspices of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health. We are continuing in this tradition, offering the creativity and resources of a large non-profit private hospital group, the rigor and academia of university-based healthcare, and the clinical experience of public sector medicine. Our fellowship program attracts high quality candidates who work with a dedicated group of board-certified faculty to become outstanding geriatric psychiatrists. Our graduates have a 100 percent geriatric psychiatry subspecialty board certification rate and excel in a variety of settings. Our fellows choose academic or academic-public partnerships as their practice settings, and are leaders in these areas. The strengths of our program include:
- Outstanding, high-caliber fellows.
- Symposia and original research presentations at national meetings (APA, AAGP) by fellows and faculty.
- Diverse fellowship-trained and dedicated faculty who are actively involved in leadership roles within national organizations.
- Supervision and teaching opportunities that exceed national requirements.
- Collaboration across public, private, Veterans Affairs, nursing home and community teaching sites.
- Interdisciplinary clinical and teaching interfacing with geriatric medicine, sleep medicine, neurology, hospice and palliative care programs.
- Nursing home administration experience.
- Structured research curriculum for fellows with protected time for research and scholarly activity and support to attend national meetings.
Our program provides robust opportunities for academic and professional growth through a structured, comprehensive clinical curriculum. In addition, innovative and enhanced clinical exposure is offered through rotations in sleep medicine, hospice and palliative care, and nursing home administration. Strong didactics and interdisciplinary case conferences, along with extensive teaching opportunities for fellows further augment clinical training, all within a professionally nurturing and supportive learning environment. As a result, our fellows are optimally prepared for successful careers in academic, private practice, or public sector geriatric psychiatry.
We believe that you will find our program exciting, challenging and professionally fulfilling. Thank you for your interest in the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Program. We look forward to meeting you personally!
Sincerely,
Shilpa Srinivasan, MD
Director of Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship program, Prisma Health Midlands
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Department of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science