Psychiatry Core Clerkship
The required Psychiatry Core Clerkship provides an intensive, four-week, clinical exposure to the assessment and management of patients with psychiatric disorders. It begins with one day of PRECEDE, which, in addition to orientation, includes special preparatory didactics on the mental status exam, psychiatric interviewing, psychiatric formulation and psychopharmacology. Each student will participate in the full range of service activities at either the Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) Meyer inpatient wards, the JHH General Hospital Psychiatry consultation service, the Johns Hopkins Bayview Acute Psychiatric Unit, or at the Howard County General Hospital. Experiences include participation in daily rounds, patient evaluations, family meetings, treatment conferences and teaching rounds. Students will conduct evaluations and meet individually (and in some settings in groups) with patients. Students are also assigned to Psychiatric Emergency Services shifts and outpatient psychiatry clinical experiences as available.
The aim and overall focus of the clerkship is to achieve learning in four domains:
- Function as a physician: Demonstrated degree of responsibility, initiative, thoroughness, rapport with patients and ability to work as part of a team
- Knowledge of psychiatry: Mastery of the basic facts of psychiatric disorders – pathogenesis, psychopathology, diagnostic points and major treatments
- Skills: Demonstrated ability to obtain a psychiatric history, execute and communicate the mental status examination and formulate a case
- Ability to reason psychiatrically: Capacity to approach mental life from a variety of perspectives of analysis, aware of sources of theory-bound bias, recognizing and prioritizing the issues in patients’ lives for which psychiatric intervention is appropriate and potentially beneficial.
Elective Opportunities including the Psychiatry Subinternship
For all students, elective opportunities in psychiatry will allow them to improve their skills and to develop new areas of interest in the field. Elective courses must be approved by the preceptor; any member of the department may act as preceptor.
Elective work may be done within the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions or under the supervision of Hopkins’ faculty in affiliated institutions in the Baltimore area. In addition, students may request sponsorship of the department for an assignment to another medical school in the United States or abroad.
In addition to training programs in research and clinical psychiatry, the department offers elective seminars and independent study projects.
It is the policy of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences to maintain flexibility in its elective programs, and to attempt, as much as possible, to design programs that meet the needs of the individual students.
Students from any year should coordinate electives directly with the identified course director. Students are invited to discuss their interests in psychiatry with Dr. Parekh and Dr. Gerstenblith at any time given their coordination of the core clerkship in psychiatry and subinternship experiences.
Although there are numerous clinical and research electives available in the department, they should not be considered as prerequisites for residency training in psychiatry.
For those students who are strongly considering a psychiatry residency, it is recommended they complete a four-week subinternship in psychiatry. It should be noted that completion and passing of the core clerkship in psychiatry is a prerequisite for the psychiatry subinternship. The psychiatry subinternship does NOT fulfill the subinternship requirement for graduation. The subinternship experience is good for students who wish to find out if they will like psychiatry as a career before making decisions about entering the field. Subinterns are placed on clinical teams and have direct clinical management responsibilities under the supervision of the service's resident and attending. Students who may be interested in training in psychiatry should consult Dr. Avi Gerstenblith (tgerste1@jhmi.edu) and Dr. Vinay Parekh (vparekh1@jhmi.edu) as early as possible to discuss their educational plans.
The elective programs described on the following pages are representative of opportunities for elective work that are available in this department, but many other opportunities can be developed through direct collaboration of individual students and individual faculty members.
Psychiatry Program
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| First Year | ||
| ME.370.650 | Genes to Society - Mind, Brain, Behavior | |
| Second Year | ||
| ME.800.645 | Topics in Interdisciplinary Medicine - Substance Use Disorders | |
| Second, Third, or Fourth Year | ||
| ME.370.601 | Psychiatry Core Clerkship | |
| Elective Opportunities | ||
| ME.370.699 | Psychiatry Elective | |
Subinternship in Psychiatry This subinternship does NOT fulfill the graduation requirement | ||
Community Psychiatry | ||
Forensic Psychiatry | ||
Geriatric Psychiatry | ||
Clinical Research on the Behavioral Pharmacology of Substance Use Disorders | ||
Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Disorders | ||
HIV Psychiatry Service | ||
Research in Molecular Neurobiology of Brain Diseases | ||
Clinical Neuropsychiatry | ||
Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatric Disorders | ||
Research in Eating Disorders | ||
Clinical Research in Schizophrenia | ||
Molecular Genetics of Schizophrenia | ||
Psychosomatic Medicine/Chronic Pain | ||
ECT and Novel Brain Stimulating Therapies | ||