Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

A child and adolescent psychiatrist will supervise some of your patient interactions on this rotation and provide feedback to improve your interviewing and diagnostic skills. You will also observe experienced faculty members conducting assessments, and you will discuss diagnoses and treatments together. You’ll gain experience with treating adolescents in individual therapy, assessing and treating families, and interfacing with the educational and legal systems. Throughout, you will focus on how family dynamics contribute to children’s behavior and development.

Two months of this rotation focuses on inpatient care at Erie County Medical Center’s Child and Adolescent Unit; one month focuses on outpatient care at locations including Oishei Children’s Hospital and the University Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic.

In addition to this core rotation, your emergency psychiatry rotation gives you additional experience with the pediatric population: More than 15 percent of patients evaluated through the emergency service each year are children or adolescents. A child and adolescent psychiatrist provides supervision for your on-call experiences throughout your residency as well.

PGY-2 or PGY-4

Three months

You will follow two to six patients on the adolescent unit. Your outpatient experience includes initial evaluation and follow-up of one to two patients, with further outpatient work with children and adolescents in the emergency setting.

Problems treated include: mood disorders, developmental disorders (including autism), suicide attempts and suicidal inclinations, emotional problems accompanying chronic illness, stress-related illnesses, ADHD, conversion disorders, and parent-child relationship strains affecting the child’s physical and emotional well-being.