Psychiatry Residency

The Adult Residency Program in Psychiatry at Berkshire Medical Center is a four-year, ACGME accredited program.

First year rotations include: four blocks of internal medicine; two blocks of neurology, and seven blocks of inpatient psychiatry.

Second year rotations include: seven blocks of inpatient psychiatry; three blocks of clinical work divided into 2/3 inpatient substance psychiatry, 1/3 emergency psychiatry, and three blocks consulation liasion psychiatry.

Third year is fully devoted to outpatient psychiatry and provides for training in adult, child, adolescent and geriatric psychiatry and a rich set of chief residencies in inpatient psychiatry, consultation-liaison psychiatry, substance abuse treatment, psychopharmacology and clinical research and emergency psychiatry.

There are also a number of electives, including further training in: clinical research; grant-funded public health implementation programs that have included a SAMHSA/MA DPH best practices in suicide prevention, a Massachusetts Health Policy Commission funded telepsychiatry behavioral health integration in primary care, and opiate use disorders innovative bridging programs to treatment; performance improvement, employee assistance services, college student counseling, sleep disorders, pain and co-morbid psychiatric disorders, advanced training in cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders, advanced training in dynamic psychotherapy and advanced training in substance abuse treatment.

Recent graduates who have been interested in further fellowship training have gone on to programs including Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Yale, Sloan-Kettering--Cornell, Emory and the University of Massachusetts Medical School to name a few. Our graduates who have been interested in fellowship training study child and adolescent psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, public psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, geriatric psychiatry and sleep disorders. Others have assumed leadership roles and/or clinical practice in statewide public psychiatry programs, prestigious medical centers, community hospitals and private practice settings.

There is a rich curriculum of seminars taught throughout the four years that both meet and surpass the program requirements for certification in psychiatry. Didactic seminars take place twice each week. The program also offers yoga-mindfulness training, resilience and self-care training, extensive training in the psychiatric interview, fostering healthy patient-physician relationships, world-view and spirituality seminars and a host of other offerings that help the psychiatric resident evolve into an ever more grounded clinician, teacher and leader ready to face the public health challenges before us.