Our training program encourages residents to hone their clinical skills and find their interests in psychiatry.
The Department’s residents’ wellness committee gives continuous feedback to improve our wellness curriculum. It includes team activities, process groups and wellness educational didactics. Based on resident feedback, we recently introduced Balint groups in which residents discuss emotions triggered by an encounter with a client and reflect on its meanings to the client, resident provider, attending and the staff team. One of the most popular yearly activities is the resident retreat. This is a great opportunity for residents to visit popular places in New Mexico such as the immersive artistic experience at Meow Wolf!
PGY-3
"The third year of residency is focused on working in an outpatient setting, and each day is different. We have a half day of clinic per week in each of the following five psychiatry clinics: Child/Adolescent, Geriatrics, Addiction, Adult Chronic Mental Illness (COPE), and Adult
Short-term Mental Illness (START). There is a lot of teaching this year, and Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings each week are dedicated to didactics taught by different psychiatrists in the department. The rest of the week is flexible time to use for psychotherapy patients, electives, research, study, and to focus on our areas of interest"... Read More
Ruth D'Cunha, MD, MPH, PGY-3
Community Psychiatry Chief
PGY-4
"The final year of psychiatry residency at UNM affords the flexibility to pursue your specific interests within the field. There are nine half days per week allotted for electives, and the program readily accommodates each resident’s plans for their fourth-year schedule. In addition to tens of pre-established electives offered at both UNM Hospital and the VA, residents also have the ability to design their own electives with the program’s approval. My interests lie in integrative psychiatry and psychotherapy, and the UNM psychiatry program has allowed me to pursue these further during fourth year. I am grateful to be able to augment my learning with training in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, continued studies in integrative psychiatry and participation in two psychedelic research trials at UNM. I also plan to do two separate rural psychiatry rotations, at NMBHI in Las Vegas and IHS in Gallup. Overall, I feel very supported by the department and excited to finally be able to pursue my passions within psychiatry."
Rebecca Kass, MD, PGY-4
This short video features some of your future faculty and colleagues talking about the program, and special opportunities, that await you at UNM.
Visit the state’s wonderful tourism website for stories and videos about living in the Land of Enchantment
Medical Education Program Manager
Judith River-Kamps
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
2400 Tucker Avenue N.E
1 University of New Mexico
MSC09-5030
Albuquerque, NM 87131