Mayo Clinic offers a one-year clinical Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship in Rochester, Minnesota, for individuals who would like advanced education in geriatric psychiatry.

As a Geriatric Psychiatry fellow, you:

• Gain expertise in the prevention, diagnosis, evaluation, and management of mental disorders in elderly patients in the context of medical and surgical comorbidities and psychosocial factors
• Are exposed to a complete spectrum of clinical and academic experiences in geriatric psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, medical psychiatry, gerontology, behavioral neurology, and hospice and palliative medicine
• Acquire expertise in psychopharmacotherapy, neuromodulation therapies and psychosocial interventions to treat elderly patients with late-life mental disorders, as well as in understanding elderly patients in the context of their families, caregiver, and environment
• Become proficient in evaluating and managing patients with late-life major psychiatric disorders 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, including internal medicine, neurology, neuropsychology, nursing, social work, and other allied health staff, is an important aspect of the training experience.

The didactic curriculum consists of a structured series, as well as other educational opportunities, such as grand rounds, journal club, case conference, and more.

A quality improvement project is required, a scholarly or clinical research project is strongly encouraged, and fellows have the opportunity to work with mentors in developing quality improvement or research projects or pursuing other scholarly activities such as 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
• Hospital consultation psychiatry with leaders in psychosomatic medicine, as well as electives in hospice and palliative care and sleep disorders medicine

The fellowship is integrated into the largest multidisciplinary academic group practice in the world, and in that setting includes opportunities to teach medical students and psychiatry residents and to develop research projects with leaders in fields related to geriatric psychiatry.

Accreditation

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

Certification

When you successfully complete the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship, you will be prepared to sit for the Certification in the Subspecialty of 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.

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