The Women's Mental Health Fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, provides exciting subspecialty training opportunities for residents interested in the ways sex and gender can exert a major influence on the course, expression and treatment of psychiatric disorders. The purpose of the fellowship is to train expert clinicians in the psychiatric care of women, and in the assessment and treatment of psychiatric symptoms linked with female reproductive cycle transitions. Please email wmhfellowship@bwh.harvard.edu for more information.
The goal of the fellowship is to train leaders in women's mental health to adeptly treat women with psychiatric disorders by understanding the following concepts and developing the following skills:
Women's Mental Health Service Psychiatric Specialties: An outpatient service offering consultation, diagnostic evaluation, pharmacotherapy and brief psychotherapy for women with reproductive-related psychiatric or psychological symptoms
Reproductive Psychiatry Consultation Service: A service embedded within medical psychiatry. This service provides consultations to inpatients on the Brigham and Women's obstetrics and gynecological floors.
Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program (MCPAP for Moms): A statewide service that provides real-time, perinatal psychiatric consultation and resource and referral for obstetric, pediatric, primary care and psychiatric providers to effectively prevent, identify, and manage their pregnant and postpartum patients' mental health and substance use concerns.
Women's Mental Health Service at the Gretchen and Edward Fish Center for Women's Health: A service that offers comprehensive outpatient mental health care as part of an integrated, multidisciplinary program including primary care and other specialty care services
Brigham and Women's Hospital Ambulatory Obstetrics Practice: A service that offers comprehensive outpatient mental health care as part of an integrated, multidisciplinary practice
Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU): Directly embedded multidisciplinary services. Mental health services for parents with babies admitted to the NICU.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Women's Psychosocial Oncology Services: The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Psychosocial Oncology Department offers psychopharmacology, cognitive-behavioral and problem-focused psychotherapy to women experiencing cancer-related issues such as emotional distress, cognitive changes, body image changes, sexual health, relationship concerns, parenting concerns, existential concerns and grief.
McLean Hospital: As part of this elective the fellow will be involved/participate in psychiatric units designed to treat women with eating disorders, trauma disorders, and borderline personality disorder.
Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Psychiatric Clinic: Offers consultation, diagnostic evaluation and treatment for women who are struggling with difficult emotional reactions to infertility and its treatment or women who have mental health problems and infertility. Patients are treated through infertility work up and treatment, pregnancy and postpartum.
Didactics:
Weekly Women's Mental Health Rounds: A one-hour, multi-disciplinary case conference during women's mental health trainee clinic. The fellow has an opportunity to discuss cases and review literature. Rounds also gives the fellow an opportunity to teach trainees at various levels of learning.
Consultation-liaison Psychiatry Didactics: The fellow is welcome to join our consultation liaison fellows on Friday mornings for didactic learning.
Supervision:
The fellow has approximately two to four hours of individual supervision per week with the core faculty of the fellowship. More supervision is available with adjunct faculty, as determined by fellows interest.
Academic Project:
This fellowship emphasizes clinical experience, but also includes a scholarly project, the nature and scope of which depends on the fellow's interests. These projects can range from conducting an independent research project and publishing the results, to collaborating on an ongoing research project, to co-authoring a journal article or book chapter, to peer-reviewing others' research or publishing a book review. For those who are interested, there may be an opportunity to expand the academic project to include a larger amount of protected research time throughout the course of the fellowship. Those fellows anticipating a career in academic psychiatry will be encouraged to submit a paper for publication and/or present at a regional or national conference.
Evaluation:
Fellows will meet weekly with their supervisor at the clinical sites for case review as well as general feedback. These weekly meetings also provide an opportunity for discussion of strengths and weaknesses and to formulate constructive plans for improvement, and meeting fellows' career goals. More formal career mentorship and counseling will occur between the fellowship director and the fellow as the year progresses. At the conclusion of the fellowship the program, the supervisor fills out a formal written review that evaluates the skills and attitudes of the fellow. Fellows will also have an opportunity to provide feedback about their experience through evaluation forms of the program and faculty. The feedback gathered from these evaluations is discussed at the next quarterly meeting of the program leadership and used to adapt and improve the program year to year.
Fellowship Structure:
This is a full-time clinical fellowship. The fellowship begins July 1st and lasts one full calendar year.
Fellowship Benefits:
The fellowship offers generous benefits options. Fellows are given four weeks of vacation time and three days for educational pursuits.
Academic Appointment:
Successful applicants must qualify for a Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital clinical appointment.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis starting May 1st until the position is filled.
Eligibility: Applicants must have completed or plan to complete an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited psychiatry residency by the fellowship start date (July 1). They must be able to be licensed to practice medicine in Massachusetts by the start date.
To apply: Submit the application requirements listed below to the fellowship coordinator.
Email: wmhfellowship@bwh.harvard.edu
Address: Women's Mental Health Fellowship
Att: Fellowship Coordinator
60 Fenwood Road
Boston, MA 02115
Application requirements:
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