Aims
The aim of our program is to provide advanced training to residents with a strong interest in Geriatric Psychiatry. Our primary goal is to cultivate Psychiatrists with an expertise in the field of Geriatric Psychiatry, who will go on to become leaders in the field. Their expertise is expected to cover a wide pathway, including: clinical practice, teaching, research, and consultation. Additionally, we assist in the training of general psychiatry residents in the specialty area of geriatric psychiatry.
Program Goals
The goal of advanced residency training in geriatric psychiatry is to produce specialists in the delivery of skilled and comprehensive psychiatric medical care of older adults, suffering from psychiatric and neuropsychiatric disorders. This program is structured to train residents/fellows in all aspects of geriatric psychiatry to prepare them for clinical practice in the geriatric population, geriatric research, and geriatric consultation skills.
Geriatric psychiatry is that area of psychiatry which focuses on prevention, diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of mental disorders and signs/symptoms seen in older adult patients. The goals for the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship at UAMS & CAVHS aim to provide professional knowledge, skill, and opportunities to develop competencies through a well-supervised clinical experience.
The six goals of the residency training in geriatric psychiatry are designed to produce specialists in the delivery of skilled and comprehensive psychiatric medical care of older adults suffering from psychiatric and neuropsychiatric disorders.
- The geriatric psychiatry fellowship provides advanced training for the resident to function as an effective consultant in the subspecialty. To accomplish this goal, the fellowship emphasizes: scholarship, self- instruction, development of critical analysis of clinical problems, and the ability to make appropriate decisions.
- Clinical experience in the geriatric psychiatry fellowship includes opportunities to assess and manage elderly inpatients and ambulatory patients of both sexes with a wide variety of psychiatric problems. To fulfill this goal, the geriatric psychiatry residents is given the opportunity to provide both primary and consultative care for patients in both inpatient and outpatient settings in order to understand the interaction of normal aging and disease as well as to gain mastery in assessment, therapy, and management.
- The geriatric psychiatry fellowship program includes training in the biological and psychosocial aspects of normal aging.
- The fellowship program includes instruction in the psychiatric impact of acute and chronic physical illnesses
- The geriatric psychiatry fellowship provides instruction in the biological and psychosocial aspects of the pathology of primary psychiatric disturbances beginning in or continuing into older age.
- The geriatric psychiatry fellowship focused on multidimensional biopsychosocial concepts of treatment and management as applied both in inpatient facilities (acute and long-term care) and in the community or home settings. The fellowship rotations places an emphasis on the medical and iatrogenic aspects of illness as well as on sociocultural, ethnic, economic, ethical, and legal considerations that may affect psychiatric management.