Curriculum

The core curriculum consists of four three-month blocks. One block focuses on inpatient geriatric psychiatry, one on interventional psychiatry, one on neuropsychiatry, and one on geriatric medicine. There are two half-days of outpatient continuity throughout the year, one at the UNC outpatient psychiatry clinic and the other at two different continuing care retirement centers. There are ample opportunities to participate in electives during each block. Fellows will have one full day per week dedicated to didactics and an additional half day per week to focus on scholarly activity. The curriculum is designed to be comprehensive, in-depth, and flexible to meet the unique goals of each fellow.

Core Rotations:

Inpatient Geropsychiatry Unit – The inpatient geriatric psychiatry unit is a 10-bed subspecialty unit at UNC where fellows will learn to manage severe mental health conditions, psychotic disorders, and neurocognitive disorders. Fellows will have a 3-month block as an acting attending on the unit. The medical director is Dr. Julia Lunsford

Long-term care rotation – fellows will see psychiatry consults at two continuing care retirement centers (CCRC), The Cedars at Chapel Hill and Galloway Ridge a half day every other week throughout the year along with an attending geriatric psychiatrist. They will practice community and environmental assessment by visiting with residents at this facility and will work with families of residents.

Outpatient continuity clinic – fellows see older adults in a UNC geriatric psychiatry outpatient clinic one half-day per week throughout the year. They will learn to manage mental health conditions in late life. They will learn screening cognitive assessments, family and caregiver assessment, and will practice functional assessment. Fellows are supervised by an attending geriatric psychiatrist.

Interventional psychiatry – Fellows will get experience with ECT 1-3 days per week during their three-month interventional psychiatry block. There are typically 10-15 patients getting ECT per day. Over the rotation, fellows will develop increasing competence with independently administering ECT and will be supervised by ECT faculty. For fellows interested in more interventional experience, they have the option of additional training in TMS, esketamine, brexanolone, and/or additional time with the ECT service.

Memory Disorders – Fellows will spend a half day per week during two three-month blocks in the Aging Brain clinic learning to assess cognitive impairment, diagnose, and manage patients with neurocognitive disorders, particularly mild cognitive impairment. They will obtain information from family and other caregivers, will become familiar with imaging, sleep, and other diagnostics

Electives:

CL psychiatry
Psych-oncology
Palliative Care
Geriatric Medicine
Neurology consults
Geriatric Neurology
Neuropsychology
movement neurology
huntington’s clinic
TMS/esketamine

Didactics

Fellows will participate in several weekly conferences where they will learn about relevant areas of medicine and hear case presentations. Additionally, they will join the geriatric medicine fellows for their weekly didactics. All didactic time is protected.

Interventional didactic
Consult-Liaison conference
Geriatric psychiatry conference
Inpatient case conference
Cognitive neurology case conference
Psychiatry Grand rounds
Geriatric medicine fellows didactics

Call

There are no call responsibilities for geriatric psychiatry fellows.

Scholarly Activity

There are several opportunities to engage in scholarly activity and fellows will have one half day per week protected for this. Fellows can develop a case report, create educational materials, lead a QI project, or contribute to ongoing research studies.