Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship

We are accepting applications for our Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship for July 1.

Mission

The mission of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Program is to train excellent clinical geriatric psychiatrists who are capable of becoming effective leaders in the field, as clinicians, educators, researchers, and advocates.

Program aims

Foremost the Program will ensure that graduates are well prepared to practice geriatric psychiatry wherever older adults receive healthcare services. To accomplish this, clinical rotations will span a broad range of inpatient, outpatient, and long-term care settings. In addition to longitudinal experience in the program’s geriatric psychiatry outpatient clinic, fellows will rotate in the primary care geriatric medicine clinic.

In the geriatric medicine clinic, fellows will gain experience working in a primary care environment, consulting to geriatricians and other primary care providers, and delivering geriatric primary care themselves, under the supervision of a faculty geriatrician. The goal is to ensure that fellows are prepared to manage frail patients with co-morbid, chronic medical and psychiatric conditions.

Fellows also will rotate in a Neurology Department’s dementia clinic, learning cutting-edge principles of dementia evaluation. In addition to traditional nursing home consultation, the long-term care rotations will include experience in assisted living facilities, retirement communities, and a specialty psychiatric nursing home. The program also strives to prepare fellows for future professional roles as the healthcare delivery system evolves.

Fellows will learn principles of program consultation, staff development, indirect patient consultation, team-based care, and population health, as it applies to geriatrics. To accomplish this, fellows will participate in a telephone consultation program at New Hampshire Hospital and participate in admission and utilization decisions for older adults in this facility. A weekly seminar, in which fellows and faculty discuss readings from a curated syllabus, exposes fellows to the core concepts and tenets of geriatric psychiatry.

Completion of the fellowship prepares the resident to sit for the examination for Added Qualifications in Geriatric Psychiatry offered by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Training for medical leadership

The goal of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship is to prepare the psychiatrist to assume a leadership role in training other health care professionals in the essentials of diagnosis and management of psychiatric problems in the elderly and in treating older patients with complicated comorbid conditions.

Training in biological, psychological, and social systems are given equal importance and their integration is emphasized. Fellows become proficient in evaluating and managing patients with dementias, late-life major psychiatric disorders, and acute and chronic medical problems. Interaction with other disciplines including neurology, medicine, neuropsychology, nursing, and social work is an essential aspect of the training experience.

In addition, didactic training in normal aging, evaluation techniques, and research is provided; and a scholarly or clinical research project is strongly encouraged. Completion of the fellowship prepares the resident to sit for the examination for Added Qualifications in Geriatric Psychiatry offered by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Teaching while learning

Teaching activities comprise approximately half of the fellow's time and include:

  • Liaison with medical and surgical units
  • Supervision and teaching of residents and medical students
  • Formal and informal seminars for nursing home staff
  • Alternating case conference and journal club with general internal medicine
  • Supervision of multidisciplinary treatment teams during the New Hampshire Hospital rotation

Clinical research opportunities

Research opportunities include externally funded programs such as treatment effectiveness for depression in primary care, clinical drug trials for patients with Alzheimer's disease, neuroimaging, social support for the medically ill elderly, and health services research.

For additional information, please contact:

Gary Moak, MD, Program Director Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
1 Medical Center Drive, Dept. of Psychiatry 5D
Lebanon, NH 03756
Phone: 603-650-4725;
Fax: 603-650-0614
Email: gary.s.moak@hitchcock.org

Rebecca D. Roberts, Fellowship Program Coordinator, Geriatric Psychiatry
1 Medical Center Drive, Dept. of Psychiatry 5D
Lebanon, NH 03756
Phone: 603-650-4523 
Fax: 603-650-0819
Email: rebecca.d.roberts@hitchcock.org

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.