What you will do:

You will be under the supervision of a board-certified physician who completed psychiatry residency at the University of Michigan. After residency, the preceptor completed two fellowships - one in addiction psychiatry and the other in child and adolescent psychiatry. As a faculty member at both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, the physician is actively involved in the education of U.S. medical students. The preceptor is also called upon to lecture at the medical school.

Please note that this is not a shadowing observership. You will be actively involved in patient care via either Zoom or audio calls. You will have encounters with adolescent, adult, and elderly patients with diagnoses of mood, thought, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and polysubstance abuse disorders. Although most encounters will be with outpatients, you will also experience inpatient psychiatric care as this preceptor provides mental health services to foster children residing in a  facility. 

After a few days of observation, you will take on an increasing role in patient care. Then you will begin to take histories under the preceptor's supervision. Once you have demonstrated the skills to take histories, you will then be allowed to conduct independent interviews with patients. Useful resources for conducting these interviews include:

Suicide Risk Screening Tool

Brief Suicide Safety Assessment

How to Conduct a Clinical Review of a Patient's Medicines

Tips for the Psychiatric Interview

During your experience, you will learn the following U.S. medical practices under the preceptor’s supervision:

• Taking histories

• Performing mental status exams.

• Developing evidence-based therapeutic plans.

• Presenting patients.

• Writing progress notes.

• Researching the literature to answer clinical questions at the point of care.

• You may deliver talks about important topics.