Mission

To develop and transform a diverse group of medical students into military officers and physician-scholars who are equipped with knowledge, skills, and attitudes as experts in psychiatry, prepared to serve the military, veterans, and the community as healers, and to enable medical readiness of their commanders and military units.

Vision

The vision for our program is to promote mental health and train well-rounded psychiatrists through excellence in education and clinical practice.

Aims

Resident and Faculty Wellness

• Promote diversity and create a professional, equitable, respectful, and civil environment that is free from discrimination
• Enable a work climate informed by the Job Characteristics Model that emphasizes autonomy and timely feedback
• Support one another in accomplishing goals and performing and living at our highest potential

Leadership

• Integrate mentorship, sponsorship and coaching starting in the PGY-1 training year
• Apply leadership and management skills via Leading Change curriculum
• Provide military unique curriculum including Combat and Operational Stress Course, Traumatic Event Management, and Supervisor Courses, etc. that prepares future military medical leaders

Clinical Care

• Provide access to diverse patient population across the greater D.C. area
• Enable autonomy and provide choices in self-directed experiential learning

Scholarship

• Create learning climate to encourage curiosity and critical thinking
• Advance knowledge to reduce military mental health burden and improve military readiness

Education

• Organize and create curriculum based on Self-Directed Learning and Adult Learning Theories and Principles to improve -knowledge and skill retention
• Develop faculty in order to support organizational and residency mission and aims

• Tuesday and Thursday Noon Conference
• Weekly Grand Rounds
• Weekly PGY Specific Didactics from 1 - 4 p.m.
• Monthly Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Conference

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

• Adult Partial Hospitalization (PGY-2, selective)
• Consult-Liaison Psychiatry (PGY-1, PGY-4, selective)
• Forensic Psychiatry (PGY-4, selective)
• Geriatric Psychiatry (PGY-1, selective)
• Inpatient Neuropsychiatry (PGY-4, selective)
• Inpatient Psychiatry (PGY-1, PGY-2, PGY-4, selective)
• Outpatient Addiction (selective)
• Outpatient Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (selective)
• Pain Management (selective)
• Procedural Psychiatry (ECT, rTMS) (selective)
• Sleep Disorders (selective)
• Other electives

A.T. Augusta Military Medical Center

• Addiction Residential Treatment Facility (PGY-1, selective)
• Child/Adolescent Partial Hospitalization (selective)
• Inpatient Psychiatry (PGY-4, selective)
• Inpatient Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (selective)
• Outpatient CAPS (PGY-3, selective)
• Other electives

INOVA Fairfax Hospital

• Consult-Liaison Psychiatry (PGY-2, selective)

Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute (NVMHI)

•  Inpatient Psychiatry (PGY-2, selective)

Children’s National Medical Center (Washington, D.C.)

• Inpatient Child Psychiatry (PGY-2, selective)

Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs Hospital

• Consult Neurology (PGY-1, selective)
• Neurology Clinic (PGY-2, selective)
• Internal Medicine (PGY-1, selective)
• Inpatient Psychiatry (Selective)

Washington, D.C. Department of Behavioral Health

• Emergency Psychiatry (PGY-4, selective)

PGY-1

• Resident Call responsibilities are at WRNMMC, covering the adult inpatient psychiatry unit (7W). Towards the end of PGY-1 year, PGY-1s will begin break-in call, where they take on the PGY-2 call responsibilities while the PGY-2 covers the inpatient unit for the PGY-1.
• Schedule: PGY-1 call shifts are from 3:30 - 10 p.m. Monday-Friday, and from 8 a.m. - 10 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, and holidays. Monday-Friday call shifts are typically covered by the PGY-1s currently rotating on 7W. Both weekend days are covered by the same PGY-1 each weekend.

PGY-2

• Resident call responsibilities are at WRNMMC, including the adult inpatient psychiatry unit (7W), neuropsychiatry unit (7E), and patients in the emergency department and on other medical/surgical units that have consulted psychiatry.
• Schedule: PGY-2 call shifts are from 3 - 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 3 p.m. - 8 a.m. Friday, 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. Saturday, and 8 a.m. - 10 p.m. Sunday and holidays. Monday-Thursday shifts are typically covered by the PGY-2s currently rotating on 7W.

PGY-3 and PGY-4

• Resident call responsibilities are at ATAMMC, including the adult inpatient psychiatry unit, adolescent inpatient psychiatry unit, and patients on other medical/surgical units that have consulted psychiatry.
• Schedule: PGY-3 and PGY-4 call shifts are for one-week intervals, beginning on each Tuesday afternoon, and ending on the subsequent Tuesday morning. On weekdays, the resident is on home-call, meaning that the resident is not routinely expected to be physically present at ATAMMC. On weekends and holidays, the resident must be physically present in the mornings at ATAMMC to round on current patients, see newly admitted patients, enter orders, and enter proper progress notes/history and physicals as appropriate.

• PGY-1 Psychiatry residents are required to maintain both Basic Life Support and Advanced Life Support (ALS) or Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) throughout their PGY1 training year.
• PGY-2-4 Psychiatry residents are required to maintain Basic Life Support (BLS) certification throughout their residency training.  

Simulation training is a component of our military specific curriculum. The program engages in one practical OSCE related to each of the following: 

• Military decision-making process
• Command decision breathing,
• Combat operational stress control
• Traumatic event management.

Simulation training and courses are conducted in the simulation center at Walter Reed National military Medical Center each year. PGY-3 Psychiatry Residents have the opportunity to act as a subject matter expert and observer/controller for the USUHS medical students as they complete a practical simulation and capstone exercise called "Operation Bushmaster."

• Integrated mentorship, sponsorship and coaching starting in the PGY-1 training year
• Application of leadership and management skills via Leading Change curriculum
• Participation in military unique curriculum course offerings including Combat and Operational Stress Course, Traumatic Event Management, Supervisor Courses, etc. that prepares future military medical leaders.

• National Intrepid Center of Excellence
• Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
• USUHS
  • Robust faculty led research projects
  • Home of Army STAARS
• NIH collaboration

Residents participate annually in a PGY-4 led quality improvement project.

• Didactics dedicated to military professional competence.
• Dedicated course during 4th year didactics to prepare graduates for clinical leadership positions.
• Simulations designed to prepare residents to respond to requests from military leadership for courses of action related to the behavioral health readiness of service members.

• A.T. Augusta Military Medical Center
• INOVA Fairfax Hospital
• Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute
• Children’s National Medical Center (Washington, D.C.)
• Washington D.C. Veterans Affairs Hospital
• Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
• Kimbrough Ambulatory Care Center, Fort Meade, Maryland
• Operational Psychiatry Rotation - Fort Liberty and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

If you choose to rotate here, you will typically spend four weeks with us: two weeks on one service and two weeks on another service. During your time here, we have goals for you as a rotator and goals for ourselves as the recruitment chairs also. We hope these goals help explain what priorities to our program are as you decide if we are the program for you.

Our Goals for you:

• Experience what the day-to-day life of a Walter Reed psychiatry resident is like.
• Participate in patient care to develop the skills and attitudes of a military psychiatrist.
• Create meaningful relationships with other sub-interns, residents, and faculty. -Have fun!

Goals for Ourselves:

• Welcome and support a diverse cohort of military medical students to the Walter Reed Psychiatry training program who embrace the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Continue to grow in our capacity to incorporate principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion into recruitment, interviewing, and the selections process.
• Expose applicants to the opportunities our program has to offer to thrive as a trainee and develop into a military psychiatrist through clinical experiences, didactics, and interactions with current residents and faculty.
• Help students envision themselves as part of the Walter Reed Psychiatry community by facilitating opportunities to further explore their interests and become familiar with the national capital region.

At this time, all interviews will be held virtually and will be approximately 30 minutes in length. Applicants will be emailed information about their specific interview date and time with a link. Applicants will be asked structured questions. In the interview, there will typically be three people present – a program director or associate program director, a faculty member, and an intern/resident physician.

Program graduates take the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology board exam. This exam is offered annually in September. To become fully board certified, applicants are eligible to take board certification exam in September following graduation. To be eligible to take specialty board exams, graduates must complete all pre-requisites required by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology no later than September 30 of the year of the exam administration. Here is a link to the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology policies, which contain the prerequisites for the board exam: https://www.abpn.com/about/policies/. The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology requires a physician to become Board certified within seven years following successful completion of ACGME-accredited or ABPN approved residency training.

Residents engage each year in our Residents as Teachers curriculum. They are given foundational knowledge in teaching and coaching medical students and future residents. They are provided the opportunity during their PGY-3 year to perform as subject matter experts and observer/controllers for the USUHS medical students in their practical simulation and capstone exercise called "Operation Bushmaster."  In the PGY-4 training year, residents are required to complete a rotation called "Senior Teaching Resident" where residents develop, implement, and teach a medical curriculum and are responsible for noon conferences and morbidity and mortality (M&M) conferences for that month.

Given our proximity with the USUHS, there are multiple opportunities for the residents to perform and engage as teachers with the USUHS medical students who are rotating within the department.  Additional opportunities occasionally occur where our residents are invited to provide lectures or instructional periods at USUHS for medical students.

We have faculty with board certification or training in the following specialties and subspecialties: general psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, internal medicine, sleep medicine, forensic psychiatry, consultation-liaison psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, and geriatric psychiatry.

Residents will select global supervisors and therapy supervisors during their PGY-3 year that provide guidance on clinical patient encounters. They can also select mentors to guide them on research, PGY-4 Grand Rounds presentations, quality improvement projects, on electives or other required rotations (ex: the Senior Teaching Resident rotation).

Resident and faculty wellness is our primary aim and one of our main focuses in this program. This is made evident by our successful implementation of opportunities for taking your well-earned military leave from the program, our regularly scheduled wellness activities including team building activities in place of didactics every 5th Wednesday, and our more subtle extensive opportunities for health, welfare, and support for residents should they need assistance during their training.