THIRD POSTGRADUATE YEAR

12 Months - All Outpatient

The PGY3 curriculum aims to deepen the resident’s understanding of diagnosis and formulation, and develop their competence in the long-term management of psychiatric illness.

Residents spend one day per week at the outpatient clinic at Parkland Hospital.  This service teaches the resident to manage acute and chronic psychiatric illness through pharmacotherapy, supportive therapy, crisis management, and systems interventions.   The patient population is ethnically diverse and is challenged by socioeconomic hardship and intensive medical co-morbidity.  

Another day is spent in the UTSouthwestern Psychotherapy Clinic, learning intensive psychotherapy, both psychoanalytic and cognitive-behavioral, with higher functioning patients.  All residents co-lead a group therapy as well.  Supervision is intensive, generally consisting of three hours/week with individual therapy supervisors.

An additional half-day is spent at either a student mental health clinic or at an innovative primary care clinic (PsyPCE) at the VA, where the resident manages both medical and psychiatric issues under the supervision of internal medicine and psychiatry attendings.

Residents have an additional day for specialty clinics.  4 months are spent in child psychiatry, leaving two 4 month blocks for electives, which include family and couples therapy, forensics,

Each site provides individual supervision, a clinical case conference, a journal club, and a didactic survey of topics relevant to the practice of outpatient psychiatry.

The core didactics offered in this year are Advanced Psychotherapies, Advanced Neuroscience and Pharmacology,  and a continuous case conference.  An elective seminar on reading fiction through a psychoanalytic lens is offered in the spring. Most classes elect to continue their Training-group experience through the PGY-3 year as well.