Psychiatry

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RESIDENTS' TOP TEN REASONS FOR CHOOSING JPS

1. JPS is located in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, which is a great central location with lots of job opportunities for family members.
2. The state of the art Psychiatric Emergency Cetnter is an excellent teaching venue for severe and emergent psychiatric illness. Your experience there prepares you for even the most demanding jobs in psychiatry.
3. The team atmosphere offers a supportive and fun environment.
4. We treat a high volume of complex patients for a good well rounded exposure to anything you may encounter once practicing on your own.
5. Our attending to resident ratio is 1.25:1 meaning you have plenty of supervision in handling complex cases.
6. Competitive salary & benefits.
7. We have changed the rotations so interns work two months in outpatient family medicine and two months in inpatient medicine instead of four months of inpatient medicine. The work load is lighter on outpatient medicine, and the medical complaints are more relevant to what you need to know in clinical practice.
8. Cost of living in Fort Worth is very affordable.
9. Residents serve as expert witnesses in court for commitment hearings. This is an excellent learning experience for learning how to testify in a court setting.
10. Lots of free food! The cafeteria allows residents a $10 a day allowance and there are catered lunches at least once a week.

2009-2010 JPS Psychiatry Residents 

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Our general psychiatry residency is a four year program which is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and also by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA). We emphasize developing neuropsychiatric skills including the neurologic examination, neuropsychological evaluation of cognitive disorders and neuroimaging.

Residents are exposed to biological, psychological and sociocultural theories of human behavior, methods of prevention, diagnosis, and clinical intervention and research projects. Residents learn to diagnose mental illness, to ascertain individual and family needs, to assess the social context of mental illness, to formulate treatment plans and to make appropriate interventions, including follow up. Residents also learn somatic therapies, such psychopharmacology & ECT, as well as psychotherapy and the proper utilization of outside resources, such as vocational rehabilitation, 12-step programs and the legal system.

Resident performance is monitored through written evaluations by clinical service chiefs at the end of each rotation and by psychotherapy supervisors every six months. The residency director meets with each resident semiannually to discuss all evaluations and to help individualize training goals. Clinical records are regularly reviewed to evaluate a resident's ability to record an adequate history, mental status, physical and neurological examination, justification for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and discharge summary.

Residents take the Psychiatric Residents In Training Examination (PRITE) and the Columbia Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Exam each year to help assess their progress, identify strengths & weaknesses and assist in preparation for general psychiatry certification examinations taken after graduation. They also participate in mock oral examinations in which they interview a patient, present the case, and answer questions about the case in the presence of a faculty member and as well as a small group of peers. Faculty members, who have served as examiners for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, are among those who critique the interview & its presentation. Research projects are a required part of the residency program and a variety of research mentors are available to assist. Junior and senior medical students rotate through the department and house staff are an intimate part of the education of these students. Senior house staff participate in the education of junior residents as well.

PSYCHIATRY DEPARTMENT CHAIRMAN

ALAN L. PODAWILTZ, D.O., M.S., F.A.P.A Alan L. Podawiltz, D.O., M.S., FAPA is a 1995 graduate of the Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Podawiltz completed his intern year at the Oregon Health Sciences Center in Portland, Oregon. In 1999 he completed his Psychiatry residency at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in Lubbock, Texas. He served as the Chief Resident for the TTUHSC Department of Psychiatry during his last year in the residency. Dr. Podawiltz completed a one year Clinical Research Fellowship at TTUHSC. Dr. Podawiltz became the Psychiatry Residency Training Director at TTUHSC in 1999. In 2001 Dr. Podawiltz accepted the position of Psychiatry Residency Training Director for the John Peter Smith Health Network (JPS) Department of Psychiatry and served in that role until he assumed the position of Interim Chair of Psychiatry at JPS August of 2003. Dr. Podawiltz is currently the Chair of Psychiatry for the University of North Texas Health Science Center Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Chair of Psychiatry for John Peter Smith Health Network. He is also the Training director for the American Osteopathic Association certified Psychiatry Residency at John Peter Smith Hospital. In addition to the Chair role Dr. Podawiltz has served in numerous roles within the Department of Psychiatry including Director of Outpatient Services and Director of Research.

RESIDENCY DIRECTOR

A. SCOTT WINTER, MD, DFAPA Prior to his coming to JPS Dr Winter served as a USAF psychiatrist and flight surgeon. After completing his military payback time he went into private practice and during that time he served as the medical director of two psychiatric hospitals. After coming to JPS he was assigned as the medical director of the JPS Psychiatric Emergency Center and subsequently as the psychiatric residency director. He is an associate professor of psychiatry at The University of North Texas Health Science Center and vice chairman for education for the department of psychiatry. He is boarded by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and has subspecialty boards in Forensic Psychiatry, Geriatric Psychiatry and Addictionology. He is a 'Distinguished Fellow' of the American Psychiatric Association and has been recognized by the APA for excellence in medical student education. He has also received the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill, and was named a "Top Doc" for 2007 by Fort Worth Magazine. Dr Winter is the recipient of the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physician’s (district chapter of the APA) Special Service Award for his volunteer work in setting up a residential treatment facility in Lufkin, Texas for psychiatric casualties of hurricane Katrina. Dr. Winter is the author of a book on dual diagnosis and has multiple publications on this topic and others.

CURRICULUM OVERVIEW

SEMINARS & CONFERENCES

Didactic activities are considered an essential component of the total education program. Seminars are arranged so residents will have an opportunity to attend all programs offered within their four years of training. Specialized lecture programs, which meet on Tuesday, are held for first & second year residents. An educational day has been established every Friday to allow third & fourth year residents to focus on both required and optional didactics and meet with fellow residents. Required didactic time is ‘protected’ so that residents have no conflicting demands on them during this time. Throughout the residency, seminar series are scheduled covering a broad range of topics such as interviewing and assessment techniques, clinical and descriptive psychiatry, psychopharmacology, child and adolescent psychiatry, consultation / liaison psychiatry, theories and practice of psychotherapy, geriatric psychiatry, community psychiatry, neurobiology, forensic psychiatry, evidence based medicine, research methods, cultural psychiatry, and others. Additional educational meetings include a monthly journal club, case conference, & grand rounds. Residents also meet monthly during lunch with the program director and a separate monthly luncheon is held to meet with the chief residents (we have two chief residents - one for operations & another for academics).

In addition to the scheduled seminars and clinical experiences, each resident participates in an hour of weekly supervision for psychotherapy and an hour for clinical supervision (separate from clinical site supervision).

CLINICAL EXPERIENCES

Each program year of the residency builds upon previous experiences. We expect our residents to become increasingly competent in utilizing clinical and laboratory studies in patients presenting with a broad range of common medical and surgical disorders, in diagnosing these disorders, and in formulating initial treatment plans.

They will be able to provide limited, but appropriate, continuous care of patients with medical illnesses and to make appropriate referrals. Residents are expected to be familiar with medical disorders displaying symptoms likely to be regarded as psychiatric, and with psychiatric disorders displaying symptoms likely to be regarded as medical. In addition, they will be able to relate to patients, to the members of patients' social networks, and to other members of the health care team with compassion, respect, and professional integrity.

The resident will be highly skilled in choosing treatments, in formulating a thorough differential diagnosis and treatment plan, and in providing continuous care. They will be competent in the major types of therapy ranging from alcohol detoxification to long term individual psychotherapy and in the provision of psychiatric consultations in a variety of medical, surgical, and community settings. There is an integrated emphasis upon the development of psychotherapeutic skills for each resident. In addition, they will know the indications for and limitations of the common psychological tests.

ROTATIONS

The training program is reviewed and revised each year in order to meet the education guidelines provided by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education. This process involves significant input from the residents. The following schedule provides a basic overview.

First-year 

Second-year 

Third-year 

Fourth-year 

Continuous Outpatient Psychiatry is conducted throughout the fourth year.

CALL SCHEDULE

First and Second Year:
Residents can expect 4 to 5 call nights per month when taking Psychiatry call. The resident will work from 7:30-5pm when on Inpatient Psychiatry, Outpatient Internal Medicine, or Neurology. They then report to the Psychiatric Emergency Center at 5pm and will work until 8am the following morning. The resident is excused from all duties their post call day, and has a minimum of 24 hours off after a call night. Call nights are assigned such that residents will not be post call on their didactic days. Attending psychiatric staff work along side the residents 24/7 and provide close supervision. Because Psychiatry call is an emergency room shift, call may not be taken by phone at the residents' home. When working in inpatient internal medicine, the resident takes call for the internal medicine service only, and does not take call in psychiatry. Residents rotating on inpatient internal medicine take in-house call every 5 days and may not exceed 30 consecutive hours working in the hospital.

Third and fourth year residents have no night calls but can expect an average of one to two 12 hour shifts per month in the Psychiatric Emergency Center from 8am to 8pm on weekends.

APPLICATION AND SELECTION PROCESS

Our residency program participates in the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS). The psychiatry residency training program accepts four PGY-1 residents each year. Prospective residents are asked to submit the following through ERAS:

ERAS Application Form
Personal Statement
Current Curriculum Vitae
Three Letters of Recommendation
USMLE or COMLEX Test Scores (or equivalent)

Letters of recommendation must be dated and current (having been written in the last twelve months). We only accept applications from candidates who have graduated from medical school within the past ten years unless they are already licensed in one of the 50 states or a US territory.

International medical graduates must also submit a copy of their ECFMG certificate. ECFMG certification must be valid. In addition, international medical graduates must have no visa restrictions and possess a United States social security card. We accept J-1 visas only.

All inquiries should be sent to the following address:

Tonya Stephens
Department of Psychiatry
JPS Health Network
1500 South Main St.
Fort Worth, TX 76104
tsteph02@jpshealth.org 

Applications are accepted September 1 through December 31 of each year.

Complete applications are reviewed by the program director and residency training committee. Selected candidates are invited to travel to Fort Worth to be interviewed, tour the campus and meet with members of the faculty, staff and resident physicians currently in the residency training program.

Interviews are scheduled from October through January. Hotel accommodations are provided when funding is available (generally not a problem).

Click here for a copy of the Psychiatry Residency Program Brochure.