The Department of Psychiatry at Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix offers elective rotations for qualified fourth-year medical students. Each clinical rotation is a combination of inpatient and consultation-liaison experiences, complemented by supervision with full-time faculty, regular interaction with our psychiatry residents, attendance at various lectures, seminars and case conferences and assigned reading.
Electives are offered from August through January (University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix fourth-year students are able to rotate April, May and August through January).
Clinical Experiences
Adult Inpatient Service:
As an "acting internship," students in this setting have the opportunity to evaluate and treat patients with a variety of acute psychiatric illnesses, including psychosis, mania or severe depression. Supervision is provided by the full-time attending psychiatry faculty and our residents using a multidisciplinary team approach. There is a focus on comprehensive diagnostic evaluations and biological interventions within a psychosocial framework.
Consultation-Liaison/Emergency Service:
Our Consultation-Liaison/Emergency Psychiatry Service has a large volume of diverse patients seen in consultation on the inpatient medicine and surgery teaching services, emergency room, transplant and rehabilitation medicine services and outpatient family practice, internal medicine, OB/GYN, neurology and subspecialty clinics.
As an active member of the Consultation-Liaison team, medical students have the opportunity to work closely with the full-time psychiatry and psychology faculty and more senior residents. This elective is an excellent opportunity to participate at the psychiatry-medicine interface at a busy, academically affiliated community hospital with a diverse patient population.