General Psychiatry Residency

Overview of the Program

The General Psychiatry Residency Program is structured to provide residents with the knowledge and expertise to deliver superior psychiatric care to their patients. These goals are accomplished through a four-year broad-based curriculum, which includes such areas as neuropsychiatry, psychopathology, pharmacology and various psychotherapeutic approaches to their patient. In addition, our program includes education in geriatrics, ECT, telepsychiatry, forensic and addiction psychiatry with the opportunity of various electives in the fourth year of training.

The program gives our residents a sense of fellowship while providing comprehensive didactic and clinical training.

The majority of our graduates pursue postgraduate fellowships. Upon completion of all training, our residents easily pursue either clinical practice or academic/research oriented careers.

Program Highlights 

• Innovative teaching methods 
• Emphasis on medical student education and creating physician educators 
• Diverse educational experiences in a variety of clinical settings 
• Free access to Rutgers University Recreation including all fitness centers 
• Protected full-day didactics every Tuesday
• Emphasis on resident wellness with a residency-specific wellness committee and weekly social events 
• Diverse patient population 
• Free access to Rutgers University Library with 5 million volumes and digital resources including UpToDate, DynaMedPlus and Clinical Key

What Made You Choose the General Psychiatry Residency Program?

Hear a message from our Robert Wood Johnson Medical School residents who discuss the highlights of the training program.

Clinical Rotations

The Department of Psychiatry's educational goal is to provide an individualized foundation to our trainees that stimulates professional growth and integrity. Our experienced and dedicated faculty skillfully integrate clinical experience, supervision, didactics and research into our education-training programs.

Graduate medical education is based on the principle of progressively increasing levels of responsibility in caring for patients under the supervision of the faculty. Use the links provided for a brief description of the individual year levels.

Call Schedule

All 24 hour call is taken at UBHC in Piscataway. When on call, the residents are responsible for coverage on the Adult and Adolescent Inpatient Services, in addition to walk-in/emergency calls. 

• PGY-I: No psychiatry call will be taken while on internal medicine or emergency medicine rotations. In addition, PGY-I residents are not responsible for call on weekends or holidays. PGY-I residents will be paired with a senior resident for the first six calls in order to ease the transition from medical student to resident.

• PGY II: The PGY-II resident is on call on average every sixth or seventh night. PGY-II residents are responsible for taking call on weekends and holidays.

• PGY-III: PGY-III residents are responsible for supervisory call of new PGY-I residents at UBHC approximately once per month, up to six per year, and are exempt from call on weekends and holidays.

• PGY-IV: No call responsibilities 

Promise Clinic

All residents have the opportunity to participate in Promise Clinic, a student-run clinic providing free primary care to uninsured patients of Elijah's Promise Soup Kitchen. Our resident-volunteers serve in the role of providing psychiatric consults.

Didactic Curriculum​​​​

A diverse, comprehensive curriculum occurs throughout a resident’s four years of training. Residents will have one full day of protected time every Tuesday for participation in scheduled didactics. This includes when residents are off service on internal medicine and neurology. While rotating on internal medicine and neurology, residents will attend didactics at those sites when offered as well.

Residents receive instruction in psychopathology, psychopharmacology, various psychotherapies and community and forensic psychiatry. Residents also participate in lectures on substance abuse, child and adolescent and geriatric psychiatry. During this period, residents will also attend a research seminar and learn to design their own research projects. Residents also participate in seminars focusing on neuropsychiatry, ethics,  journal club and departmental grand rounds, often given by nationally recognized speakers.

The psychopathology didactic is taught weekly as a movie club known as Reverent Understanding of the Macabre (REDRUM). Initiated and run by Dr. Anthony Tobia, the didactic is an innovative approach that uses film to teach the etiology, clinical characteristics, course, and formulation of a broad range of mental illness affecting adults. Popular culture is often used as a medium to teach psychiatry at our residency program, and many residents go on to present at national conferences every year.

The Advanced Psychopharmacology course is taught weekly and provides residents with evidence-based information on medications and related areas (pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenetics, pharmacoeconomics, etc.). In addition, residents are expected to present on specialized topics of their choice within psychopharmacology. This creates an opportunity for residents to analyze evidence on their own while also fostering presentation skills. Through this course, residents will learn to choose the treatment options that best suits the personal characteristics of each individual patient.