Behavioral Science Resident Training

Behavioral Medicine Rotation

An essential piece of comprehensive, primary care is the proficient application of behavioral medicine services. Key facets in behavioral medicine training for family medicine residents include understanding psychosocial factors that impact the health of patients:

Recognizing common psychological problems and/or    concerns

Facilitating appropriate mental health interventions and    referrals

Developing and refining effective communication skills with    colleagues and patients.

Additionally, the behavioral medicine experience affords residents the opportunity to examine and enhance their individual development and promote a healthy balance, personally, familially, culturally and professionally (Family Practice/Behavioral Science Block Rotation, January 25, 2005).

Highlights

Special Paper

In-training Exam questions

Behavioral Medicine Monographs

Additional Core Activities
  (dependent on availability)

Highlights

Article Presentations/Associated Questions

Topics:

• Communication/Compliance

• Adolescents

• Family Centered Care

Special Paper

Behavioral Medicine topic
– resident chooses in conjunction with his or her B-Med    preceptor

• Opportunity to explore a topic that is of interest to the resident. This assignment affords the resident practice with scientific writing and may even provide the groundwork for another scholarly project the resident wishes to pursue in the future.

• Example topics include: diabetes and compliance, ADHD identification and treatment, or depression and pregnancy

In-training Exam questions

This activity offers the opportunity to gain increased exposure to ITE questions and to learn more about issues addressed in the items by studying associated content explanations.

Behavioral Medicine Monographs

Monograph assignments required on the B-Med rotation offer a meaningful learning opportunity by providing thorough reviews of the following topics:

• Depression

• Childhood Behavioral Problems

• Family Violence

• Addiction in Family Medicine

Additional Core Activities (dependent on availability)

Therapy patient encounter /case review /note writing. This activity provides opportunities to:

• Gain greater awareness of the psychological processes typically seen in standard medical patient encounters

• Practice diagnostic interviewing skills in assessing psychiatric issues

• Practice SOAP note writing for targeted psychosocial issues

Group attendance/delivery:

• Expression Through Art group

• Smoking cessation

• Other groups —eg. family therapy or AA/NA groups

Video/audio training: These are training videos targeted toward training needs of a Primary Care physician.

• Interviewing skills in primary care
  • Motivational Interviewing/Health behavior change
  • How to motivate your patients without running them off!
• Family Violence
  • How to conceptualize/evaluate/ intervene
• Disclosing adverse events
  • Who/what/when/where???