Psychiatry Residency Greenville - Curriculum

Clinical Rotations

Throughout all four years of training, residents are assigned to one faculty member for global supervision in areas of career development, case formulation, professionalism, scholarly activity, and knowledge enhancement.

We also have a research curriculum that progresses over the course of your training at our program. Residents will become familiar wtih various types of research as they work on their individual research project with faculty supervision in addition to creating and completing a group quality improvement project as an upper level resident.

Lastly, all residents are teachers in our residency training program. A lecture series over the course of four years is provided to enhance residents' teaching skills to medical students and other learners in the clinical learning environment. All residents will present a Case Conference to our program as a PGY-3 and a Grand Rounds to our Department as a PGY-4 or PGY-3 if fast-tracking into fellowship.

Please see our unique rotation schedule by PGY-level below.

PGY-1

The first year of our program is made up of the following rotations and is intended to create a foundation in psychiatric and medical clinical care for the resident.

Adult Inpatient Psychiatry
Emergency Psychiatry
Inpatient and Outpatient Neurology
Internal Medicine
Emergency Medicine
Pediatrics
Family Medicine
Night Float
PHP/IOP

The first year combines 6 blocks of primary care and neurology rotations with 6 blocks of psychiatry rotations. These rotations are intertwined throughout the year to promote wellness and become familiar with colleagues in the department of psychiatry throughout the entire year, as well as build upon knowledge gained on primary care and neurology rotations. Incoming residents will have the opportunity to choose an additional block of internal medicine or family medicine in lieu of pediatrics.

PGY-2

The second year of residency is dedicated to expanding knowledge and expertise in psychiatry, with focus on various subspecialty areas in psychiatry to build upon the foundations of the PGY-1 year. It is comprised of the following rotations:

Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
Geriatric Psychiatry
Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (inpatient and consult-liaison)
ECT, TMS and Ketamine
Medical Toxicology
Adult Inpatient Psychiatry
Addiction Psychiatry
Research
Emergency Psychiatry
Night Float

While doing these rotations, residents also have a half-day in a psychotherapy clinic in which the residents are assigned their first psychotherapy cases. Group supervision is provided by seasoned therapists who are well-versed in DBT, CBT, ACT, and other useful therapy modalities.

PGY-3

The third year of residency is a dedicated experience in longitudinal outpatient psychiatry. Residents receive individual supervision while in various clinics while also continuing psychotherapy clinic one half day per week with psychotherapy supervision. Resident may also elect to add additional research time to their schedule. Residents see patients in a variety of settings including:

Resident Medication Management Clinic
Resident Psychotherapy Clinic
Community Mental Health
Specialty clinics, including reproductive, child & adolescent, correctional, treatment-resistent depression, and medication-assisted treatment clinic.

PGY-4

The fourth year of training allows residents to explore areas of their interest and prepare for their career by combined elective and required experiences to gain mastery in the clinical practice of psychiatry. Residents spend about 30% of their time doing required experiences while the remaining 70% is reserved for elective experiences. PGY-4 residents continue their work in outpatient medication management and psychotherapy clinics, and are able to integrate a variety of elective experiences, including some of the following:

Correctional Psychiatry
Medical Toxicology
Reproductive Psychiatry
Buprenorphine Clinic
Administrative Psychiatry
Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
ECT, TMS and Ketamine, ECT Certification
Collaborative Care
College Mental Health
Sports Psychiatry
Research
Partial Hospital Program, Intensive Outpatient Program (PHP/IOP)
Inpatient Junior Attending
Consult-Liason Junior Attending
Outpatient Junior Attending
LGBTQIA+ Care
Medication Management/Therapy Hybrid

Didactics

Didactics are protected time for residents and occur one half day per week. Faculty and guests lecturers are involved in delivering didactics, and residents will also develop their teaching skills by leading journal club and presenting case conferences and grand rounds sessions.

Core Didactic Components

Grand Rounds
Clinical Case conferences
Year-specific didactic curriculum
Journal club
M&M Conferences
Monthly PRITE Review

Year-specific didactic responsibilities

PGY-1: PGY-1 residents have a foundational curriculum throughout the PGY-1 year, including orientation and introductory concepts, neurology review series, and foundational concepts in psychiatry, psychiatric illnesses and treatment modalities.
PGY-2 & 3: PGY 2&3 residents together will dive into a 24 month, modular, illness-based curriculum that dives into the neurobiological, genetic, psychological aspects of psychiatric illness groups, as well as examining a multitude of treatment options and future directions in treatment.
PGY-4: PGY-4 residents engage in an advanced curriculum in psychiatry, focusing on interpretation of literature, leadership concepts, advanced topics in psychotherapy and psychiatry and many others.

Clinical skills evaluations will take place 1-2 times per PGY year. The resident performs a comprehensive patient interview with one faculty member present. Faculty members will provide formal, structured feedback to help residents develop and refine their interview and assessment skills.

Work Hours and Call Schedule

Our program abides by ACGME duty hour restrictions on every rotation in the program. While on Psychiatry rotations, residents can expect to work on average 40-60 hours/week, depending on whether the rotation is inpatient or outpatient.

PGY-1 psychiatry residents rotating on Primary Care rotations (Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics) can expect to work an average of 10-16 hours/day, 5-6 days/week. Emergency Medicine rotations are 8-12 hours shifts with an average of 17-19 shifts per 4 week block. Our Neurology inpatient rotation averages 12 hours/day, 5 days/week, and our Neurology outpatient rotation averages 40-50 hours/week. All rotations follow ACGME Duty Hours per their specialty.

Off service rotations are interspersed throughout the year with psychiatry rotations to allow for cumulative learning and resident wellness.

Our call schedule is as follows:

PGY-1

PGY-1 residents complete four weeks of Night Float throughout their first academic year in training. During this rotation, residents will be responsible for admission and cross-coverage of patients on the adult and child psychiatry inpatient units at Marshall I. Pickens Hospital. Residents are expected to be on site from 5pm-11pm and cover from home until 8am the following morning. Night float is nights per week, Monday – Friday nights only.
PGY-1 residents will also be responsible for covering most observed holidays. During holidays, the resident will be responsible for rounding at Marshall Pickens Hospital (adult/geriatric unit only) and seeing new consults at GMH from 8AM – 5PM. The resident will be responsible for screening admissions after 5PM, taking call for any patients on the adult, geriatric, or child & adolescent unit, as well as accepting Psychiatry consults.
PGY-1 residents will begin taking weekend call in the second half of the academic year.

PGY-2

PGY-2 residents will complete 4 weeks of Night Float throughout their second academic year. Responsibilities are similar to those laid out in the PGY-1 year.
Each PGY-2 resident will also be required to complete 9-12 weekend 24 hour shifts per academic year (either Saturday or Sunday, not both). During these weekend call days, the resident will be responsible for rounding at Marshall Pickens Hospital (adult/geriatric unit only), and taking call from 7AM until 7AM the next day, but can complete these responsibilities from home once they complete rounding and turn in their notes. The schedule has been adjusted to allow for residents to not go over Duty Hour restrictions. Call responsibilities are the same to what is described for the PGY-1’s. Residents taking call will have a post-call day following their call that is free from clinical duty.

PGY-3

PGY-3 residents will take 7-9 days of weekend call throughout the entire academic year. The responsibilities of weekend call during the PGY-3 year is similar to that of the PGY-2 year.
PGY-3 residents will have 1-2 weeks of Night Float throughout the entire academic year.

PGY-4

There are no scheduled overnight call responsibilities during the PGY-4 year.
PGY-4 residents may elect to take 1-2 weeks of Night Float.

Moonlighting

Moonlighting at Marshall I Pickens Hospital is available to residents who are in good standing with the program starting in January of the PGY-2 year. Moonlighting involves weekend inpatient and consultation-liaison coverage from 8am-5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Residents may also apply to moonlight at external hospital systems, such as Patrick B. Harris, the state psychiatric hospital.