Applications for the 2024-2025 academic year are now open. Deadline: December 1, 2023. Our fellowship is ACGME accredited.
Learn with us! You’ll develop advanced diagnostic and therapeutic skills to function effectively in an integrated medical-surgical-psychiatric health care system for a culturally and socioeconomically diverse region. You’ll have a wonderfully broad array of clinical experiences in tertiary care specialty units, ICUs, and outpatient settings. You’ll also participate in pioneering teleconsultation programs.
Join our one-year, cutting-edge training program! We’ll prepare you to serve as an expert psychiatric consultant to medical and surgical programs in inpatient and outpatient settings. This fellowship is one of a kind: the only such training available to qualified psychiatric residents in New Mexico. You’ll train at the UNM Health System and the Veterans Affairs New Mexico Healthcare System, two premier medical teaching facilities in the state.
As a fellow, you will work regularly with Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Burn and Trauma, Neurology and Neurosurgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hematology-Oncology, and Palliative Care services. You will also provide expertise for the internationally recognized Project ECHO teleconsultation program in the areas of hepatitis C, HIV, and endocrinology.
The UNM Health System is a tertiary referral center for the greater Southwest region and the only Level 1 Trauma Center for the state. UNM is also home to Truman Health Services, New Mexico’s largest patient-centered medical home for people with HIV, and transgender and gender non-binary people. In addition, the Veterans Affairs New Mexico Healthcare System serves veterans throughout the state with primary and specialty care as well as psychosocial programs. As a result, you can expect to receive excellent training in treating patients with highly complex medical, surgical and psychiatric needs.
Integration is the wave of the future. You’ll be in high demand as a psychiatric consultant with experience in the Patient-Centered Medical Home Model, Chronic Care Model, and Collaborative Care Model. When you learn with us, you’ll become comfortable communicating and working with other medical and surgical care providers. You’ll have outstanding training to engage in succinct, evidence-based interventions to co-manage these patients with their primary teams.
What I appreciated most about my training at UNM/VANMHS was the focus on evidenced-based medicine, with every plan being supported by specific high-quality literature. Additionally, given the vast catchment area of the training sites, uniquely diverse population, and broad range of subspeciality exposures, I’m not certain I could have received a similar training experience anywhere else. However, what made the fellowship truly enjoyable, was the ability to train with a team of mentors who have such a passion for CL psychiatry!
Applications for the 2026-2027 academic year are now open.
The deadline for applications is December 1, 2025. Application open date is July 1 2025.
We also accept application through ERAS, as well as the common application.
A completed application packet contains the following:
Application
Updated Curriculum Vitae
Medical School Transcripts
USMLE/COMPLEX Scores Steps 1, 2, & 3
3 Letters of Recommendation (one from current Training Director)
ECFMG Certificate (when applicable)
Send materials to
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
2400 Tucker Avenue NE
1 University of New Mexico
MSC09 5030
Albuquerque, NM 87131
Consultation-Liaison Fellowship Application
Contact us
At the UNM Health System and the VA New Mexico Healthcare System, you will act as a primary psychiatric consultant performing diagnostic interviews and examinations, follow-up visits, and communicating with medical and surgical teams. You will assume responsibility for leadership of the interdisciplinary consultation-liaison service as your experience increases throughout the year.
You will spend one to two half days per week as part of an interdisciplinary primary care team, managing patients referred for psychiatric evaluation, and liaising with other team members. You will also conduct warm handoff assessments, perform e-consultations via the electronic medical record, and manage behavioral health care registries.
One half day each week, you will embed as a consultant in a subspecialty medical clinic (gender affirming care, HIV, neurology/neurosurgery, women’s health, etc.). You will conduct specialized diagnostic interviews and examinations, direct psychiatric treatment plans, and communicate closely with specialty care providers.
For one half day each week during your rotation at the UNM Health System, you will join one or more teleECHO clinics (Endocrine, Hepatitis C, HIV, Opioid Use Disorder MAT, etc.) as an interdisciplinary hub team psychiatric content expert. As a hub team member, you will deliver psychiatric input on complex cases presented by providers from across New Mexico. You will also have the opportunity to develop and present continuing education content for ECHO network participants
You will have six protected hours each week to focus on formal seminars, journal club, grand rounds, bedside teaching, and supervision with the program director. Seminars will include a survey of core topics in neuropsychiatry and consultation-liaison psychiatry. Journal club will focus on fundamental and novel papers salient to CL psychiatry. For grand rounds, you will join with the rest of the department of psychiatry to learn about a wide variety of topics from content experts. Bedside teaching will take place in clinical settings, with the focus determined by collaboration between you and the teaching faculty. Supervision will focus on your development as consultation-liaison psychiatrist, areas of strength and growth, professionalism, and career mentorship.
You will have one half day per week of protected time for the creation, furtherance, and/or publication of a scholarly or quality improvement project, with faculty mentorship. Past scholarly projects have included a variety of case reports published in consultation-liaison journals or presented as posters at national meetings, development and presentation of educational content for grand rounds and continuing medication education, and participation and publication related to faculty led clinical research.
Teaching Faculty
David Arciniegas, MD
Clinical Professor
Jasen Christensen, DO
Associate Professor of Psychiatry Executive
Medical Director, Behavioral Health Integration & Expansion
Consulting Psychiatrist, Project ECHO
Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSB, DPS, MSJ, FACLP, DFAPA, FASAM
Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Internal Medicine
Ethics Consultant, VA National Center for Ethics in Health Care
Director of Ethics Education, UNM School of Medicine
Brant Hager, MD
Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Director, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship
Attending Psychiatrist, UNM Truman Health Services
Consulting Psychiatrist, Project ECHO
Nina Higgins, MD
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Medical Director, Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry
Christopher Manschreck, MD
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Palliative Care Clinic Integrated Psychiatry Service
UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center Integrated Psycho-oncology Service
Gregory Nikogosyan, DO
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Davin Quinn, MD, FACLP
Professor and Vice Chair, Adult Clinical Services Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Chief, Division of Behavioral Health Consultation & Integration
Director, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Service
Amy Rouse, MD
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Medical Director, Outpatient Pediatric Behavioral Health Integration
Emiliano Valles, MD
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Medical Director, UNMH Adult Psychiatric Consultation Service
Kevin Vicenti, MD
Medical Director, Raymond G. Murphy VAMC Psychiatric Consultation Service
Areas of Expertise
Chronic Pain/Substance Use Disorders
New Mexico has developed some of the most innovative methods of addressing and treating chronic pain and substance use disorders in the country. These include the use of prescription monitoring databases, motivational interviewing, teleconsultation initiatives, and specific clinics for the management of co-occurring chronic pain and substance use disorders.
Ethics
Our consultation-liaison faculty are national leaders in medical and psychiatric ethics, as well as medical and bioethics education.
HIV and Gender Affirming Care
UNM Truman Health services provides wraparound interdisciplinary primary, specialty, and behavioral health care to people with HIV, and transgender and gender non-binary people. In addition to psychotherapy and psychopharmacology consultations, services provided include medication assisted therapy for substance use disorders, transcranial magnetic stimulation, hormone therapy, referral for gender confirmation surgery, and neuropsychological testing.
Neuropsychiatry
Our consultation-liaison faculty are national leaders in research and clinical care of psychiatric manifestations of traumatic brain injury, movement disorders, and epilepsy. You may have the opportunity to participate in federally funded clinical trials of neuromodulation, advanced neuroimaging, and novel pharmacotherapies for these conditions.
Perisurgical Psychiatry
Our faculty have experience in perisurgical psychiatry, including the areas of epilepsy, movement disorders, transplant, and bariatrics.
Primary Care Behavioral Health Integration
The UNM and VANMS primary care clinics feature clinical psychologists, social workers, masters level therapists, and psychiatrists working with primary care teams to address issues such as depression, anxiety, trauma related disorders, serious mental illness, and substance use disorders.
Reproductive Psychiatry
Our faculty have fellowship training in consultation-liaison psychiatry, reproductive psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry, and deliver reproductive psychiatry through embedded consultants in specialty clinics. Fellows also have the opportunity to participate in the National Curriculum on Reproductive Psychiatry.
Teleconsultation
Our faculty serve as psychiatric consultants to several Project ECHO teleECHO clinics, where they deliver evidence-based continuing education and participate virtually in shaping care delivery for complex medical conditions throughout the state.
You can supplement core rotations with elective experiences or scholarly projects.
Visit the state’s wonderful tourism website for stories and videos about living in the Land of Enchantment
Medical Education Program Specialist
Desirae Rosales
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
2400 Tucker Avenue NE
1 University of New Mexico
MSC09-5030
Albuquerque, NM 87131
