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The community psychiatric residency rotation provides a clinical experience within a continuum of differing services. This includes inpatient psychiatric care at University Physician's Hospital at Kino, Tucson's county hospital under the supervision of faculty psychiatrists. During this rotation residents become familiar with the initial evaluation of both nonchronic and chronic psychiatric disorders as well as their treatment in a publicly funded mental health system. In addition, they gain valuable experience in the civil commitment process. By the end of the rotation the resident has become skilled at establishing rapport and a working relationship with decompensated seriously mentally ill patients and their families.
In addition to the inpatient setting, the residents gain experience in caring for the seriously mentally ill, the dually (substance abuse or developmentally disabled) diagnosed, as well as the adult developmentally disabled with behavioral disturbances in different outpatient treatment settings. These settings include residential (both short-term as well as long-term), social/recreational partial care and a community mental health clinic. Within the outpatient experience the resident learns to coordinate mental health service delivery with case managers and to grasp the role of psychopharmacology in the care of the mentally ill.
As a PGY-III residents rotate through a community psychiatry clerkship with Dr. Robert Garrett. This experience involves on-site evaluation and treatment of nursing home residents as well as clinic experience with long-term disability patients.
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