Year Three & Four - Psychiatry Externship

Description

This course is a requirement for all third year medical students. Its goal is to prepare medical students to recognize, diagnose, and care for patients with psychiatric disorders encountered in most medical practices. At the beginning of the course students will be given an outline of specific course objectives plus other orientation materials. Students will be assigned to work with interdisciplinary teams which will aid the student in meeting course objectives. Students will be assigned patients and will follow both in-hospital and outpatients. They will attend teaching rounds and a variety of teaching conferences. They will be given a series of lectures/discussions at their individual teaching sites. Each student will be required to write a brief paper concerning a patient-related problem.

OVERALL GOAL
To prepare the medical student to recognize, diagnose, and care for patients with psychiatric disorders encountered in most medical practices.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

1. Using appropriate interview techniques, the student will be able to elicit a complete psychiatric history from psychiatric and medical patients and will be able to amplify or confirm the patient's history by information from relatives and/or social agencies.

2. The student will be able to perform a physical examination emphasizing aspects pertinent to the psychiatric evaluation and a mental status examination sufficiently comprehensive to detect, at a minimum, disorders of orientation, thinking, mood, and cognition.

3. The student will learn the applications and limitations in psychiatric practice of major diagnostic tests and procedures including laboratory tests, neuroimaging tests, psychometrics, and electroencephalography.

4. The student will be able to recognize psychiatric emergencies (e.g., suicidal, violent, or delirious patients; withdrawal symptoms) and be familiar with their management. In particular, the student will develop a repertoire of questions and interpretive skills sufficient to permit estimation of the likelihood of suicide and methods of safeguarding against it.

5. The student will learn the principles of giving and receiving consultation from other physicians and to cooperate with social service agencies.

6. The student will learn the basic processes of judicial commitment in Minnesota and other basic forensic issues.

7. The student will learn to effectively utilize the processes of patient education, reassurance, and support. The student will learn indications for, and gain some familiarity with, other psychological interventions.

8. The student will be able to describe the clinical presentations, course, and prognosis of the following disorders with special emphasis on findings discriminating among them:

a. Affective disorders.
b. Anxiety disorders.
c. Organic mental disorders, especially delirium and dementia.
d. Personality disorders, especially antisocial personality.
e. Somatoform disorders.
f. Schizophrenic disorders.
g. Substance use disorders.

9. The student will become familiar with somatic treatments:

a. Common pharmacologic treatments, including indications, contraindications, and side-effects of antianxiety agents, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and sedative-hypnotics.

b. Electroconvulsive treatment indications and effects.

10. The student will become familiar with common psychiatric disorders in the aged.

11.  The student will become familiar with common psychiatric disorders first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence.