Mayo Clinic offers a one-year clinical Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship in Rochester, Minnesota. The program is designed for individuals seeking advanced education in geriatric psychiatry.

As a Geriatric Psychiatry fellow, you:

• Gain expertise in the prevention, diagnosis, evaluation, and management of mental disorders in older adults
  You learn to provide care in the context of medical, surgical, and psychosocial factors.
• You are exposed to a complete spectrum of clinical and academic experiences in geriatric psychiatry. Additional training includes neuropsychiatry, medical psychiatry, gerontology, behavioral neurology, and hospice and palliative medicine
• Acquire expertise in psychopharmacotherapy, neuromodulation therapies, and psychosocial interventions for older adults. You also develop a deeper understanding of patients within their family, caregiver, and environmental contexts
• Become proficient in evaluating and managing late-life major psychiatric disorders. You learn to provide care in the setting of acute and chronic medical problems
• Learn how to lead a multidisciplinary treatment team and teach and supervise medical students, residents and other learners

Interaction with other disciplines is an important part of your training experience.
You collaborate with professionals in internal medicine, neurology, neuropsychology, nursing, social work, and allied health.

The didactic curriculum consists of a structured educational series.
Additional opportunities include grand rounds, journal club, case conferences, and other educational activities.

A quality improvement project is required, and a scholarly or clinical research project is strongly encouraged. Fellows work with mentors to develop quality improvement or research projects. Additional scholarly opportunities include teaching in Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine.

Particular additional strengths of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship are required rotations in:

• Behavioral neurology with leading researchers in Alzheimer's disease (National Institute on Aging-funded Alzheimer's Disease Research Center) and other dementias
• A Dementia Behavioral Assessment and Response Team with leading experts in behavioral and environmental management in dementia
• Movement disorders training with leaders in managing Parkinson's disease
• Geriatric medicine with an academic medicine program
• Gain experience in hospital consultation psychiatry with leaders in psychosomatic medicine. Additional electives include hospice and palliative care and sleep disorders medicine

The fellowship is integrated into the world's largest multidisciplinary academic group practice. This setting provides opportunities to teach medical students and psychiatry residents. You also collaborate with leaders in geriatric psychiatry-related fields to develop research projects.

Accreditation

The Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship meets all the requirements of and is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Certification

Upon successful completion of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship, you will be prepared for board certification. You may sit for the Geriatric Psychiatry examination offered by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Program history

The Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship was established in 2005 and accepted its first trainee in July that year. Going forward, it is anticipated that one fellow will complete this program annually.

More from Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education