How We Learn

Department didactics take place every Wednesday, 8am-noon. You’ll then have lunch with your cohort from 12-1pm. The weekly didactics present individualized curriculum for each year of residency and cover core topic areas. During lunch, you’ll participate in your resident class and program committee meetings. It’s also a time for special-topic didactics. You’ll also get to attend grand rounds every Friday, 1-2 pm, from August through May. These feature UNM behavioral health faculty as well as national speakers. Throughout the year, we also hold special elective lecture series and events covering topics such as Integrative Medicine or Law and Psychiatry Day.

Didactic Curriculum

PGY-1 - During this year, the focus is on preparing you for clinical duties in an emergency, inpatient, and consult liaison psychiatry. You will be introduced to core topics such as inpatient psychopharmacology, ethics, and the law, and common pathologies are seen on inpatient wards such as addiction, mood, thought, stress, and personality disorders. You’ll also get to develop your skills through lecture, discussion, and experiential practice in the psychiatric interview and motivational interviewing.

PGY-2 - This year’s curriculum supports the advancing level of clinical skills required in inpatient and subspecialty psychiatry. Your didactics will expand on core topics and introduce geriatric, child and adolescent, rural, cross-cultural, refugee mental health, women’s mental health, neuropsychiatry, and community psychiatry. In your second year, you will also study supportive psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as well as attend journal clubs and wellness activities.

PGY-3 - As you move into your third year, the curriculum addresses issues in outpatient psychiatry and is designed to support clinical topics such as ethics/professionalism, outpatient psychopharmacology, child development and psychopharmacology, neuroscience, and landmark journal clubs as well as forensic and cultural psychiatry. You will have your own therapy patients and participate in diverse patient panels. You will continue to deepen your knowledge of psychotherapy and CBT and will have a substantive introduction to psychoanalytic theory and family/couples therapy.

PGY-4 - In your final residency year, we assist you as you investigate subspecialties and transition to a professional career. The curriculum includes topics such as board review, billing/documentation, telepsychiatry, and financial planning.

PGY-1 - Introduction to the psychiatric interview, psychiatrist/patient relationship, and challenging communication issues, Motivational Interviewing training

PGY-2 - Introduction to supportive psychodynamic psychotherapy and CBT, assignment of first psychodynamic supervisor and pick up the first case of supportive psychotherapy

PGY-3 - Psychodynamic psychotherapy didactics (Jeff Katzman, MD), CBT didactics (CBT basics + 3rd wave therapies i.e. ACT, DBT, MB- CBT, IPT, etc.), carry first 2 CBT and 2 psychodynamic patients with 1 supervision for each, optional group, couples, family therapy electives

PGY-4 - Continue CBT/Psychodynamic patients & supervision, similar elective options as PGY-3

At the University of New Mexico, PGY2-PGY4 residents have a large selection of electives:

Addiction and Substance Abuse (ASAP) Clinic

Learn about alcohol and drug detoxification, replacement therapy, and counselling.

Academic Medicine

Pursue academic projects, educational mentorship/teaching opportunities, and curricular innovation within our department and the School of Medicine.

Child Psychiatry

You can select multiple inpatient, outpatient, and research options.

Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) with Albuquerque Police Department

Participate in field and home visits with specially trained CIT team, and also join/present at their educational seminars and case discussions.

EARLY (first episode) clinic

Work with psychiatrists and therapists to assess, support and monitor youth/young adults with first episode severe mental illness.

Community/Rural Options

Rotate at community and school-based sites in Albuquerque and throughout the state.

Indian Health Service (IHS) Clinic

Learn about the Indian Health Service system in action.

Truman Street Clinic

Learn treating both the medical and behavioral health of patients with HIV/AIDS.

Refugee Clinic

Learn about psychiatric and psychotherapy care for refugees at one of UNM’s local primary care clinics.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

Participate in direct ECT care and consultations. You may obtain certification as part of the rotation.

Eating Disorders

Participate in clinical time, multidisciplinary collaboration, and training while working with individuals of all ages with eating disorders.

Seniors Clinic

Manage an outpatient panel of geriatric patients (usually 75 years or older) on a weekly basis. These patients have a variety of diagnoses including primary psychotic, depressive, anxiety and neurocognitive disorders.

Treatment Resistant Affective Disorders (TRAD) Clinic

Work with patients who continue to struggle with depression despite multiple past treatment interventions.

Sleep Medicine Clinic

Work with sleep medicine fellows and faculty in both clinical care and assessment. The elective also includes didactics and research.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)/Transcranial Direct Current Simulation (TDCS)

Learn how to perform TMS and TDCS as well as how to consult with patients regarding these treatments.

Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) Teleconsultation

Using interactive video technology, behavioral health experts at UNM provide didactics, facilitate case-based learning, and have real-time collaborative sessions with providers from around the state.

Esketamine Clinic

Learn how to complete evaluations and esketamine consultations for patients with treatment-resistant depression, and monitor patients while they are receiving these treatments.

Student Health and Counseling (SHAC)

Your options will include providing therapy, education, and medication management for UNM (undergraduate _ graduate level) students.

Integrative Medicine

Learn about complementary, alternative, and integrative approaches to psychiatric care, including supplements, mindfulness, yoga, Ayurvedic medicine, and more.

Veteran Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) Electives:

ECT and Ketamine Work one-on-one with an attending to evaluate patients and perform these treatments in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

Integrated Mental Health Work with the Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PCMHI) team to provide psychiatric expertise in the primary care setting.

Group Psychotherapy Work with VA psychologists to learn models of group psychotherapy for veterans living with PTSD and depression.

Shot Clinic

Assess and monitor patients on long-acting antipsychotic medications.

Psych Primary Care Clinic

Gain additional experience working with attending psychiatrists and internists to treat SMI patients’ psychiatric and medical conditions.

Consultation-Liaison

Function as an upper-level resident on the VA Consultation-Liaison team.

Mental health intensive case management program (MHICM)

Work with the VA Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team providing wraparound services for SMI patients in the community.

Neuropsychology

Through hands-on experience and didactics, gain a clear understanding of when to refer a patient for neurological testing, as well as the strengths and limitations of neuropsychological and psychological testing, for veterans with medical, neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Our faculty have research expertise in several areas, including Addictions, Bipolar Disorder and Psychosis, Health Services, and Neuromodulation. If you are on the research track, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in ongoing research as well as pursue your own interests to lay the foundation for a successful independent research career. Our clinician-research faculty will be there to mentor and encourage you.

Physician Scientist Track

We provide psychiatric training and services in rural and underserved communities throughout New Mexico. If this is a particular interest of yours, you’ll have the opportunity to create a special rural experience that lasts throughout your residency, with increasing time allocated to rural/systems work as your make progress through your training.

For example, as a PGY-2 resident, you can spend up to one month at a rural rotation site, immersed in the experience. In your PGY-3 year, you can spend up to two days per month at your primary rotation site. During your PGY-4 year, you can select a three-to-twelve-month elective to concentrate your training in one of New Mexico’s rural sites. These can include Community mental health centers, primary care sites, Indian Health Service, Veterans Affairs, private hospitals, or state-run programs. There is also the opportunity to learn how to be an effective provider of telehealth services. This provides cross-cultural experience with potential sites serving our state’s Native American as well as Hispanic communities.

The rural psychiatry program has given our residents a unique opportunity to create important connections in communities across the state. These rotations are highly rated by residents who enjoy working with a diverse patient population in settings that emphasize community consultation and participation on a treatment team while providing high-quality patient care.

We have expanded the elective in Integrative Psychiatry. If you select this year-long elective in your 3rd or 4th year, you will have 4 hours per week dedicated to the Integrative Medicine in Psychiatry curriculum from the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. There will also be a weekly lecture or experiential component.

The elective starts off with instruction in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which you are encouraged to use as a tool for your own self-care as well as offering it to your patients.

Judith Pentz, MD will be your clinical supervisor for integrative psychiatry patients. She has extensive experience in aspects of integrative psychiatric care.

Both Judith Pentz, MD and Denise Lin, MD also will offer 6 weeks of lectures with a clinical focus about nutrition and nutrients for support of mental health functioning.