APA-Accredited Pre-doctoral Internship Program

Program Requirements:

Core Clinical Placements (12 months):

  • Primary Care: 1 to 1 ½ days per week in Internal Medicine primary care resident training clinics
  • HIV/AIDS: ½ to 1 day a week in HIV comprehensive multidisciplinary medical care clinic
  • OB/GYN: ½ to 1 day a week in faculty-based OB/GYN clinic

Didactics:

  • Health Psychology (bi-weekly with interns from General Track program)
  • Cognitive Behavior Therapy (bi-weekly with interns from General Track program)
  • Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique (weekly with interns from General Track program)
  • Professional issues (monthly with interns from all programs/tracks)
  • Dept of Psychiatry Grand Rounds (weekly except summer)
  • Certification course in Primary Care Behavioral Health (6 six-hour live interactive webinars with interns from General Track program) facilitated locally with webinar faculty from University of Massachusetts.
  • Motivational Interviewing seminars/supervision as available.

Conference attendance: funding provided to attend one national conference related to integrated care

Supervision: Using the preceptor model of supervision common in medical residency training programs, interns staff patients in the primary care clinics as they are seen. Supervision is provided by a licensed PhD psychologist and an attending primary care physician where psychology interns and medical residents learn side-by-side in the resident staffing room or in exam rooms. Individual supervision, group supervision and case conferences also take place in each clinical setting. While a licensed PhD psychologist reviews each case, supervision/teaching is also provided by individuals from other disciplines including psychiatry, nursing, OB/GYN physicians, infectious disease physicians, primary care physicians, social work, addiction medicine and pain specialists.

Teaching/consultation/supervision: Interns in this track are expected to contribute to the learning experiences of other trainees and staff from other disciplines. This can be done via grand round presentations, case conferences, mini-presentations during residency staffing sessions, case consultations, etc.

Administration: Interns are expected to attend program, institutional, consumer and county-wide meetings where they will be exposed to issues and participate in solutions related to program development, implementation, evaluation, funding, system integration, and political forces.

Research: Interns have optional opportunities to participate in research related to clinical placements (particularly around program evaluation) depending upon interests and time.

Rotations/Electives: Interns spend 1 to 2 days a week in 2 selected rotations/electives, each 6 months in duration. (Options are described in Rotations/Elective link on home page) Rotations/electives currently available to integrated care track interns (subject to change) include:

  • More concentrated time in HIV, OB/GYN or Primary Care clinics
  • Geriatrics (Detroit Medical Center Nursing and Assisted Living Centers
  • Forensic Center 
  • Wayne County Jail
  • Trauma (Detroit Receiving Hospital)
  • Neuropsychology (Adult at University Health Center or Child/Adolescent at Children's Hospital of Michigan)
  • Pediatric Psychology (Children's Hospital of Michigan)
  • Adolescent Medicine (University Health Center and WSU Psychology Clinic)

Interns are expected to participate in rotation-specific didactics and supervision.

Description of Core Clinical Placement Settings: All of the core clinical settings (as well as many rotation/elective settings) are located on or adjacent to the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Detroit Medical Center campus and thus are within walking distance of each other. Paid on-campus parking is provided. Interns in this track are also assigned netbook computers that they can carry from site to site. Electronic medical records are used at each core clinical site. The different clinics have varied organizational set-ups giving interns exposure to variations of integrated care models as well as different target populations. Six months into the year, interns switch days of the week assigned to each clinic, providing greater exposure to varying practice patterns amongst medical providers. This gives interns opportunities to learn how to work within different integrated care models and with different physician practice styles.

The WSU DMC HealthSource primary care clinic is located in the University Health Center, connected to Detroit Receiving Hospital (part of the Detroit Medical Center, DMC). HealthSource is an urban capitated managed care clinic publicly funded by Wayne County to provide medical care for people who have monthly incomes of less than $300 and who do not qualify for Medicare/Medicaid and do not have other health benefits. While patients who attend this clinic and meet Severe and Persistent Mental Illness (SPMI) criteria are eligible for services through CMH, those with mild to moderate symptoms are left without behavioral health care coverage. Limited access to behavioral health services is only one barrier our patients experience to healthcare. Psychosocial issues associated with poverty such as low literacy, unemployment, limited transportation, unstable housing or homelessness, and exposure to crime and violence also contribute to poor health outcomes. Approximately 3200 adults between the ages of 18 and 65 are assigned to this clinic. Nearly all are African American and 65% are male. Many of them suffer from chronic illnesses in which collaborative behavioral health services are particularly critical for favorable health outcomes.Most do not qualify for CMH services and others do not follow-up with CMH referrals due to stigma and other barriers.

OB/GYN WSU Physician Group's University Women's Clinic. This faculty-based clinic provides OB/GYN services to a publicly and privately insured population. This clinic has a large need for on-site integrated behavioral health services to meet the needs of at-risk women. Located in the same building and adjacent to the HIV medical clinic, there is extensive on-site back-up and support from other behavioral health staff. Integrated care services are new to this clinic and as such, current interns are involved in implementing needs assessments from patients and clinic medical staff. Currently interns see patients as referred by their OB/GYN providers. We plan to develop specific protocols targeting women who present with targeted problems. Interns learn to address a variety of women's health issues including chronic pelvic pain, post-partum depression, infertility, and miscarriages.