The fellowship’s overall mission is to train psychiatric providers, using direct clinical experience and supervision, to care for patients in the Central Texas area. Adequate training involves knowledge and skill acquisition in direct patient care, often as a member of a multidisciplinary team. In the process of training it is anticipated that each psychiatric fellow will acquire specialized clinical skills strongly grounded in a theoretical knowledge base, while learning to work effectively with allied mental health professionals. The advancement of qualities central to professional identity development, including a strong sense of patient responsibility, integrity, empathy and respect for patients, is emphasized.
The Psychosomatic Medicine Fellowship is a component of the Residency Program within the
Department of Psychiatry and is organized around the guidelines specified in the Directory of Graduate
Medical Education Programs prepared under the Auspices of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) of the American Medical Association.
Our one-year Fellowship Program will offer training in a variety of care models in both inpatient and outpatient settings designed to development skills to screen, diagnose, and treat psychiatric illness in patients with wide variety of highly complex medical comorbidity.
Overall Program Goals
• To train academic and clinical psychiatrists in care of complex medically ill patients
• To create an understanding of the relationship between biopsychosocial and biomedical factors in the general hospital and outpatient settings
• To create an understanding of the importance of a good history, thorough examination, and collection of collateral information in the development a differential diagnosis and treatment plan
• To create an understanding of somatic and psychotherapeutic interventions in the general hospital and outpatient settings
• To create an understanding of how to work with medical and surgical treatment teams, managed care companies, and psychiatric services within and outside of the institution to provide appropriate care for patients
Core clinical settings include two hospitals, Seton Medical Center Austin (SMCA) and the Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas (DSMCUT). SMCA is a general medical/surgical hospital with a primarily commercially insured population and significant presence of complex cardiac care. DSMCUT is the regional Level I trauma center and primary serves the central Texas safety net population.
Outpatient electives are available including ECT, Women's Reproductive Mental Health, and PsychoOncology.
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