Overview
Child and adolescent didactic seminars are two to three hours; 48 weeks per year. Conferences are chaired by division and guest faculty. The schedule is planned for a two-year cycle, although revisions are made as circumstances warrant.
Click here to see the Didactic Schedule.
Journal Club meets the second Wednesday of each month at Noon to present and discuss one or two recent/relevant articles.
Quarterly, fellows and faculty participate in the Practice Improvement Conference. This is a quality improvement activity in which difficult cases are presented to trainees and faculty members, and discussion then ensues. In so doing, faculty and fellows alike learn from one another regarding the management of problematic issues. Additionally, Collaborative Office Roundsare held four times a year. These are presented collaboratively by fellows from multiple specialties, including child psychiatry, where complex cases are discussed. This conference is attended by faculty from Child Psychiatry, Development Pediatrics, and Psychology.
Training: Year One
The first year of training consists of three, four-month rotations at the Psychiatric Research Institute Child Diagnostic Unit, Arkansas State Hospital, and Arkansas Children’s Hospital consultation-liaison service. At the Child Diagnostic Unit, the fellow works with an interdisciplinary team including an attending child psychiatrist, psychologists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, a milieu manager, and nursing staff. The goal of this unique inpatient unit is to provide comprehensive diagnostic assessment to children with a wide range of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental difficulties. The training experience at the Arkansas State Hospital Adolescent Service is under the immediate supervision of a child psychiatrist faculty and consists of a combined rotation providing care to patients on both the acute service and the sexual offender treatment program service. The fellow on the consultation-liaison service responds to requests for psychiatric evaluation for patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital – those on inpatient services and those being seen in the emergency room. This fellow also devotes part-time to the psychiatry outpatient clinic in order to see more urgent evaluations. First-year fellows also have a full year of longitudinal outpatient clinic at the Child Study Center.
Training: Year Two
The second year of training focuses on work in outpatient clinics and elective rotations. Clinics are longitudinal at both the Child Study Center located on the ACH campus and STRIVE in North Little Rock. The training emphasis in the clinics is on interviewing, diagnostic evaluation, and multimodal patient management. Fellows also receive training experiences in pediatric neurology, pediatric developmental disorders through the Dennis Developmental Center, and school consultation-liaison during the second year. Elective opportunities include experiences in LEND grant, pediatric genetics, COACH weight loss clinic, sleep disorder clinics, family treatment program for victims of sexual abuse; as well as research programs. During this year residents are also encouraged to develop an area of special clinical or research interest. Past examples include working in an underserved community mental health center, identifying quality measures in psychotherapy, and review of psychotropic medication utilization in the State of Arkansas.