Program Information

Thank you for your interest in our Child and Adolescent Fellowship at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

The Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center offers a fully accredited, two-year fellowship training program in child psychiatry.

Applications are accepted in any year of training after the PGY-III year.
Our program in an academic center ensures the highest quality didactic programs, clinical programs and research training.
Our program's interdisciplinary approach to teaching, family-centered clinical approach and its strong research base foster an atmosphere of intellectual stimulation and the highest standards of clinical care.

Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center is located in a semi-rural setting, and serves a large, diverse patient population from a wide geographic area. All social classes, racial and ethnic backgrounds are represented in the resident's caseload. Several rotations are located in nearby densely populated urban areas such as Harrisburg and Lancaster.

The heart of the training program is a two year integrated didactic curriculum that covers a variety of topics in detail. These topics include:

Child Development
Developmental Psychopathology
Pediatric Psychopharmacology
Psychotherapies such as Family Therapy, Behavior Therapy, Dynamic Therapy, and Cognitive Therapy.
Extended seminars are held on a wide range of additional topics such as Administration in Child Psychiatry, Pediatric Neuropsychiatry, and Child Advocacy.

Fellows participate in continuous case conferences over their two year training period. Dedicated didactic time is provided to the fellows in which they will gain mastery over biological approaches to therapy as well as grounding the fundamentals of several approaches to child and family psychotherapy. Monthly journal clubs are led by faculty and fellows, focusing on the most current and relevant literature.

These programs take place in a supportive, collaborative atmosphere. Faculty and fellows work together for the clinical benefit of the patients. Fellows work with the faculty to continually modify the training program to enhance the fellow's education.

We hope to have the opportunity to meet with you to describe many of the other exciting aspects of our training program.

Required Clinical Rotations

First Year

During the first year, clinical rotations are varied. The outpatient rotations are devoted to:

Pediatric Neurology Clinic
Eating Disorder Partial Hospitalization Program
CBT Group (Partial/IOP)
ADHD Clinic
Pediatric Consultation Liaison
Family therapy Clinic (Inpatient)
Family Therapy Clinic (Partial/IOP)
Sleep Clinic
Anxiety Clinic
Mood Disorder Clinic
Scholarly Activity rotation
PDD/Autism clinic
Forensics rotation including participation in mock trial

First year training also includes a 4 month rotation at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute Child Inpatient Unit (a collaboration between Hershey Medical Center and Pinnacle Health).

Second Year

The second year consists of four month rotations through various community child psychiatry sites and elective rotations. These include:

Schools
Lincoln Intermediate Unit rotation (school based evaluations)
Community psychiatry centers
Forensic child psychiatry rotation
Substance abuse treatment center
ASD school/clinics
Electives
Longitudinal Clinic
Child Consultation Clinic
Residential Treatment Facility rotation
Eating Disorder Outpatient Clinic

These rotations occur in urban centers and in relatively remote rural centers. On-site psychiatric supervision is provided at all of these rotations. The educational mission of the Penn State University is strongly supported at each of the sites. Illustrative of the rotations are Lincoln Intermediate Unit, The Vista School, Caron Foundation, and the Capital Area Early Childhood Training Institute.

There are two elective blocks during the second year of training. Fellows can use this time to pursue research or to enroll in a number of other clinical electives. Electives available include child abuse assessment, pediatric sleep disorders, Autism, genetics, eating disorders, forensic psychiatry, and multiple research electives. Fellows are encouraged to design their electives based on their future clinical, research, and administrative goals after graduation.

Research Opportunities

There are numerous, unique features to the child psychiatry fellowship training program at Penn State University.

The funded Children, Youth and Families Consortium consists of approximately seventy child mental health researchers, from the various campuses of Penn State University, who meet on a regular basis to discuss research proposals and to present their work. The collaboration between these investigators has led to many federally funded research projects and the coalition itself provides funding for research studies to junior investigators.

CRTP (clinical research training program) is an ongoing program for Penn State trainees. A new course in Patient-oriented Research was recently added to the curriculum. There are three options for students interested in clinical research training: a) non-degree students may take individual courses; b)students may receive a Certificate in Clinical Research; or c) students may receive a Masters Degree in Public Health Sciences.

Trainees are welcome to participate in any ongoing research project within the department. All that is required is that the Resident approach the faculty member in charge of the project and work out how they can become involved. The more they get involved the more likely they will be included on abstracts presented at meetings as well as on publications. It is possible that the Resident can develop an independent but related project that they will be in charge of as this relationship matures.

Collegial Relationships

The training program takes place in a supportive, collaborative atmosphere. Faculty and residents work together for the clinical benefit of patients. Residents work with the faculty to continually modify the training program to enhance the resident’s education.

Faculty are actively engaged in basic and clinical science research projects, providing opportunities for cutting-edge investigations in the areas of psychopharmacology, psychiatric disorders that span the life cycle from childhood to the geriatric period, behavior disorders, sleep disorders, biological psychiatry, and community mental health.

Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
Penn State Hershey Medical Center campus is located on 550 acres on the western edge of the town of Hershey, 12 miles east of the state capital at Harrisburg. Both the medical center and Penn State's College of Medicine are located on the campus. The medical center serves as the main teaching site for the medical school. Penn State Hershey Medical Center is a modern, acute care facility that accepted its first patients in October 1970. In addition to psychiatry, residency training is offered in pediatrics, surgery, anesthesia, pathology, neurology, medicine, family medicine, dermatology, obstetrics/gynecology, ophthalmology, urology, orthopaedics, and otolaryngology. Currently more than 350 residents and fellows are training at the Hershey campus.

Penn State's College of Medicine
Penn State College of Medicine is a four-year medical school that admitted its first class of 40 students in September 1967. Currently, there are more than 400 medical students, 191 graduate students, and 522 full-time faculty serving at the college. In 1967, Penn State's College of Medicine became the first in the nation to have an independent Department of Family and Community Medicine. Penn State also established the first family and community residency in the country. The college also was among the first in the country to have an animal research farm on campus. The farm and its central animal quarters are known internationally for their humane treatment of animals. But perhaps its most notable accomplishment is the development of the world's first safe and effective artificial heart. Today, the "Penn State Heart"-the air-driven model developed by a heart surgeon and two engineers-is only one of two air-driven hearts to receive approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use as a bridge to heart transplantation.

Biomedical Research Building
The Biomedical Research Building is a seven-story, 256,000-square-foot academic facility built in 1993 at a cost of $46.3 million. The Biomedical Research Building is the hub for more than $60 million in basic and clinical research programs administered by Penn State's College of Medicine.

The George T. Harrell Library
The George T. Harrell Library, housed in the center of the clinical science wing, is almost 50,000 square feet with a capacity to hold more than 125,000 volumes. Our biomedical library collection provides residents with reference material including access to 106,521 volumes, more than 2,200 current subscriptions and 300 full-text electronic journals. The university is a member of the statewide Health Sciences Library Consortium allowing rapid access and retrieval of reference material. Every resident has access to our computerized reference retrieval system from home or from the their unit. Ovid databases include Medline, Aidsline, Best Evidence, BioethicsLine, CancerLit, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, ERIC and Health star. CURRENT CONTENTS, the Web of Science and Nextwave are also available.

Children's Hospital at Hershey Medical Center
The Penn State Children's Hospital at PSHMC is an internationally recognized facility that provides comprehensive medical and surgical care to infants, children, and adolescents. It serves as a primary care resource for the community and a referral source for the children of south central Pennsylvania. Principal service components include the inpatient service, the newborn nurseries, and the outpatient service.

Other Facilities on the Hershey Campus
Other facilities on the Hershey campus include a University Fitness Center, and two house officer/student apartment complexes. Magic Years Child Care Center is also nearby.