Clinical Rotations

This elective at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab allows trainees to gain experience in consultation-liaison psychiatry, with a focus on managing psychiatric conditions in rehabilitation settings, particularly for patients with spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, stroke and amputation. Residents are able to develop strong relationships with patients due to fixed-schedule appointments and the opportunity to spend more time with patients. Residents have both the autonomy to make treatment plans and interview and the supervision to feel confident in their medical decision making.

CCJCC is a forensic clinic that is a non-judicial office under the authority of the Circuit Court of Cook County, which is operated by Northwestern University. CCJCC provides a variety of services responding to requests from juvenile court judges for mental health information in the context of court proceedings, including court-ordered forensic evaluations for fitness to stand trial and mental state at the time of the alleged offense, identification of community-based mental health resources, and referrals to court-related entities and agencies. This elective offers an excellent opportunity for residents to become acquainted with the relationship between psychiatry and the legal system and learn the fundamentals of forensic psychiatry. 

A medical education project elective can be considered for residents who have a specific medical education scholarly project that they would like to work on under faculty mentorship during their elective time. Residents who have completed this elective in the past have used this time to explore career paths in medical education, work on designing and developing lecture or curriculum materials, participate in direct observed teaching and/or work on medical education research and literature review.

The rotation at Positive Sobriety Institute (PSI) provides psychiatry trainees with a unique opportunity to enhance their clinical skills in substance use disorder treatment for professionals. PSI focuses on advancing psychiatry trainees' skills in diagnosing substance use disorders, using pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy for individual and group sessions, providing psychoeducation on substance abuse, as well as exposure to a variety of substances and behavioral addictions.

Lurie Children's multidisciplinary consult team provides services to children and adolescents with primary psychiatric diagnoses, including autism spectrum disorder, depression, anxiety, psychosis, catatonia and eating disorders as well as medical diagnoses such as delirium and coping due to primary medical conditions.

Lurie Children's Partial Hospital Program (PHP) in the Lincoln Park neighborhood takes 14 children and adolescents and primarily serves a population with ADHD, anxiety, depression and school refusal or avoidance.  The typical length of stay in the PHP is at least two weeks and consists of family therapy, group therapy, individual therapy and work with a school liaison.

This elective at Northwestern Medicine provides trainees with the opportunity to observe and participate in neuropsychological and psychological testing, review results with clinical neuropsychologists, and formulate case conceptualizations and write reports for psychological testing. The elective gives trainees valuable experience in understanding the role of clinical neuropsychologists in psychiatric treatment and exposure to a range of cases.

The outpatient neurology and neuropsychiatry rotation is a two-to-four-week elective that allows the resident to work with some of our talented neurologists who also love to teach. It is customizable to certain interests but can include exposure to electroencephalogram (EEG) reading, first seizure clinic, genetic epilepsy clinic, multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuroimmunology (autoimmune encephalitis, CNS vasculitis) clinic, Huntington's disease clinic, Wilson's disease clinic, general movement disorders, behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry clinic and the general neurology clinic.

The sleep medicine elective is a two-to-four-week outpatient rotation that provides the resident with exposure to sleep medicine clinic and reading and interpreting sleep studies.

The geriatric clinic is led by Danielle Anderson, MD, who is also the director of our Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship. This clinic treats adults over the age of 65 with a range of psychiatric problems and medical comorbidities. The clinic provides skilled and comprehensive psychiatric medical care of older adults suffering from psychiatric and neuropsychiatric disorders. It emphasizes expert diagnosis, treatment planning and continuity of care.  

The First Contact Program is led by Will Cronenwett, MD, who is director of the General Division of Psychiatry. The program serves young adults who are in the earliest phases of what threatens to be a serious mental illness.

Symptoms of mental disorders can be frightening, all the more so when they are present for the first time. Symptoms can be varied and may include mood disturbances, changes in thinking or perception or suicidal thoughts; what they all have in common is that they can upset the trajectory of a young person’s life.

The First Contact Program aims to prevent disability by offering treatment to help people manage symptoms and to support the individual so they can have the best chance of staying in school or at work and of maintaining the relationships that are important to them.  

The Pride Clinic is led by Kaitlyn Kunstman, MD, assistant residency program director. The clinic provides mental health services, including psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis, treatment recommendations and referral to additional behavioral health supports for LGBTQ patients. Resident psychiatrists in training learn how to conduct affirming mental health evaluations that address the social determinants of health that disproportionately impact this patient population and take into account issues unique to this patient population, including the coming out process, issues around homophobia/biphobia/transphobia, ways in which this population experiences minority stress and resiliency and understanding the ways in which intersectional identities contribute to mental health.

The Northwestern Medicine Recovery from Early Psychosis Program (REPP) is led by Morris Goldman MD, an expert in schizophrenia. REPP treats 18- to 26-year-olds who have experienced a recent onset of a psychotic illness. REPP is a time-limited treatment program (two to three years) directed specifically to young adults whose psychotic experience has disrupted their progress to becoming self-reliant adults.

The program partners a team of professionals with the young adult and their social support network to promote skills that empower the young adult to define, revise and travel along a life path of their own making. The program utilizes treatment plans informed by diverse outcome measures, which the young adult increasingly oversees as he or she moves from first healing and understanding, to managing and preventing psychosis, and then to developing and engaging opportunities that help foster a sense of mastery of life’s challenges.

The practice of behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry requires knowledge of the brain-behavior relationships specific to complex neuropsychiatric and neurobehavioral conditions. This clinic is led by Amy Corcoran, MD, associate residency program director. This subspecialty is committed to better understanding the links between neuroscience and behavior and to the care of individuals with cognitive, emotional and behavioral disturbances as a result from illnesses that are traditionally also cared for by neurologists.  Examples of such conditions include strokes, epilepsies, dementias (such as Alzheimer’s disease) and movement disorders (such as Parkinson’s disease or Huntington’s disease).

The Northwestern Medicine anxiety disorders clinic is led by Michael Ziffra, MD, who is also the outpatient medical director at NMH. The program specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders and related illnesses. The program focuses on adults with diagnoses such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The program has particular expertise in working with patients whose anxiety symptoms have been more treatment-resistant, or whose anxiety disorders have been complicated by other coexisting psychiatric and medical conditions.

The women’s mental health clinic is led by Dorothy Sit, MD, who is also the director of the Perinatal & Women's Mental Health Fellowship. At the Asher Center for the Study and Treatment of Depressive Disorders, residents learn about the special behavioral health needs of women during their reproductive years. Residents advance their clinical skills in the management of patients with general anxiety, major depression and bipolar disorders during the perinatal period and in preconception planning. They will gain experience the treatment of co-presenting mood and anxiety disorders in women with epilepsy, cancer and inflammatory disorders.