The fellow will spend 6 months in strengthening the clinical skills in the evaluation and treatment of serious mental disorders on an inpatient psychiatry unit at East Central Regional Hospital and outpatient clinic at Serenity Behavioral Health Systems.
An important goal of the fellowship is for most fellows is to prepare for an academic career. It is expected that Fellows will select and develop a circumscribed area of knowledge/research upon acceptance into the fellowship. An initial research protocol will be submitted to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) within the first month of the Fellowship. While the protocol is under review, strategies for participant recruitment will be developed and relationships with recruitment sites will be forged; a data base will be constructed, plans for data entry and storage will be formulated, and a data analysis plan finalized. Administration of assessment instruments will be practiced on colleagues. Recruitment and protocol implementation will begin by the third month of the Fellowship with the goal of initial data presentation at the Spring/Summer national scientific meetings the following year. The fellow will be expected to participate in ongoing research projects apart from the one the fellow will develop that he/she takes the lead, and to submit manuscripts (chapters or journal articles) for publication. Presenting his or her work at international meetings is also an important part of training, and the fellow will participate in at least one such meeting per year. The Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior will assist with the costs of meeting registration and travel expenses, according to departmental policy. The fellowship program will also nominate fellows for travel awards and, as appropriate, other awards for junior investigators.
