Fall, Winter, and Spring Sessions. Four- or Eight-Week Session

Course Coordinator:
Maryland Pao, MD

Course Description
This is an advanced four- or eight-week elective for medical students who have a particular interest in the subspecialty of Psychosomatic or Consultation-Liaison (CL) Medicine. This National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) elective is open only to students who will have completed their initial rotation/clerkship in psychiatry before arriving at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The NIH Clinical Research Center (CRC) is compromised of over 27 Institutes and Centers whose purpose is the conduct of clinical research with medically and surgically ill patient subjects. The NIMH Office of the Clinical Director provides psychiatry consultation liaison services (PCLS) to adult and pediatric research subjects enrolled in NIH CRC inpatient and outpatient clinical trials who have a wide array of medical illnesses including cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Hepatitis, rare genetic diseases, infectious diseases, and endocrine and autoimmune disorders.

Students will discuss clinical workups and clinical research methodology with a primary mentor as well as with other members of the Psychiatry Consultation Liaison Service (PCLS). In addition, students will attend weekly clinical rounds, research meetings, and the didactic Psychiatry and Bioethics Seminar. Clinical teaching will focus on comorbid psychiatric diagnosis in the medically and surgically ill patient as well as appropriate treatment recommendations including both psychopharmacologic and psychotherapeutic interventions. Students will: 1) observe clinical evaluations of adult and children patient subjects referred to the PCLS service, 2) prepare informal case or journal club presentations, 3) identify tensions in the role and purpose of the clinical consultant in a clinical research facility, and 4) learn about research in psychosomatic medicine. Because this is a small course, individualized programs will vary widely in accordance with the needs and interests of each student.

Staff

• Maryland Pao, MD
• Lisa Horowitz, PhD
• Deborah Snyder, MSW
• Alan Zametkin, MD

For additional information, see the NIMH website.