Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship

The University of Florida, College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and the Malcom Randall VA Hospital offers a one year full-time fellowship training program in Geriatric Psychiatry. This ACGME accredited fellowship will include clinical, educational and research components and is intended for psychiatrists who have an interest in a clinical or an academic career.

Our program prepares fellows according to guidelines recommended by the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) and by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN).

Qualified applicants will have completed psychiatry residency in an ACGME accredited program, have passed all necessary exams to obtain a medical license in Florida and be board certified or board eligible.

Our faculty are committed to the intellectual growth and emotional prosperity of our fellows. Along with supervision of clinical work, comprehensive didactic seminars, case conferences, grand rounds, and journal clubs add to the rich learning process. Teaching and research will also be an important part of the educational experience. Fellows will actively participate in the planning of the program through regular evaluations of the program, its trainees, and its faculty.

The Core curriculum for this fellowship program will include these six core competencies.

  • Patient care
  • Medical Knowledge
  • Interpersonal and Communication Skills
  • Practice-based learning and improvement
  • Systems-based practice
  • Professionalism

EDUCATIONAL GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:

The primary goal for this fellowship program is to train geriatric psychiatrists who will provide effective and comprehensive psychiatric medical care for the elderly patients suffering from psychiatric and neuropsychiatric disorders. They will also learn effective communication with elderly patients and demonstrate respect, compassion and integrity while providing care.

The fellowship program will provide the opportunity to learn the psychodynamic aspects of aging and conflict and adjustment difficulties in the elderly that may influence the treatment plan and the therapeutic alliance. Fellows will be able to identify the cultural aspects and ethnic variations that play a role in the treatments and their outcomes. They will also be able to recognize and manage medical and psychiatric co-morbid disorders in multiple settings like the inpatient, outpatient, long term care settings, and community programs. The training program will help the fellows learn how to formulate a broad differential diagnosis as well as develop a comprehensive geriatric psychiatry treatment plan based on the biopsychosocial formulation and input from the multidisciplinary team, and finally to monitor the treatment plan.

Being able to define and apply the different kinds of psychotherapy including interpersonal therapy (IPT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), problem-solving therapy (PST), psychodynamic therapy and reminiscence therapy will also be an important aspect of the fellowship program. The fellow will have the opportunity to practice other behavioral modification strategies used especially in patients with neurocognitive disorders, develop knowledge about appropriate indications and application of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and other non pharmacological treatment options in the elderly.

The geriatric psychiatry fellowship program will train the psychiatrist to identify the ethical and legal issues pertinent to geriatric psychiatry, including decisional capacity, guardianship, advance directives, informed consent, end-of-life issues, palliative and hospice care. The fellow will be able to indicate the current economic aspects of health care supporting services and health care delivery like Title III of the Older Americans Act, Medicare and Medicaid. Being able to critically appraise the literature regarding methodology, biostatistics, research design and decision analysis, developing skills in accessing the literature electronically and then present the gathered data in teaching format will also be a core part of the training.

ROTATIONS:

Our fellows will receive training in a variety of settings that span the typical spectrum of geriatric psychiatric care.

APPLICATION:

Director: Uma Suryadevara, MD
Contact: Ricky Snyder or 352-265-2863

Faculty

Uma Suryadevara
Department: MD-PSYCHIATRY

Uma Suryadevara M.D.

Associate Professor
Leonardo Rodriguez
Department: MD-PSYCHIATRY

Leonardo Rodriguez

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Josepha A Cheong
Department: MD-PSYCHIATRY

Josepha A Cheong M.D.

Professor
Kenneth M Heilman
Department: MD-NEUROLOGY-ADMIN/EDUC

Kenneth M Heilman MD

Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Tessy Korah
Department: MD-PSYCHIATRY

Tessy Korah M.D, DFAPA

Associate Professor