Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship

Mission

The mission of the Central Michigan University Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program is multifaceted. We strive to achieve, to educate, to deliver, to advocate and to collaborate. We aim to promote these values through a dynamic curriculum with passionate leaders, dedicated faculty and a multitude of community/clinical experiences. It is these factors that will help to enrich the wellbeing of the children and families in the Saginaw area and provide high quality psychiatric and behavioral health care to those in need. Supporting and partnering with local organizations and inter-professional colleagues will allow for the sharing of innovative ideas, knowledge, bridging of gaps and creation of an inclusive environment; ultimately aiming to help address the needs for child and adolescent psychiatric services within our community and break down socio-economic barriers to care.

Program goals

The aim of CMU’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program aligns with our mission – to educate, to achieve, to advocate, to collaborate and to deliver.

1. To Educate: We aim to provide the fellows with structured teaching and comprehensive clinical education including care from a full range of pathology, acuity and treatment settings. We also aim to provide a supportive environment in which the fellows feel able to pursue and achieve their goals. 
2. To Achieve: We strive to achieve compassionate, sensitive, and goal-oriented fellows who aim to be leaders in their community. Our fellows aim to provide the highest quality of care to their patients and families. We encourage our fellows to continually seek out opportunities for achievement in areas of wellness, education, scholarly activity, and awareness (cultural and racial) 
3. To Advocate: An important additional goal of the fellowship is to help raise awareness and provide education for families, physicians and allied mental health professionals who can then aid in the development of child mental health policy, foster child and adolescent mental health clinical programming and otherwise serve as advocates for child mental health care locally, regionally, statewide and beyond.
4. To Collaborate: Through comprehensive experiences, our fellows participate in a collaborative care model with community partners which enhances patient access and care delivery to health systems across the state as well as provides diverse and comprehensive learning experiences. Through these experiences they are focusing on the integrated approach of medical, behavioral, and adjunctive therapies to improve the quality of life for patients and families impacted by mental illness.
5. To Deliver: With our location in upper middle Michigan, we are poised with a unique opportunity to deliver care to a large catchment area. With our trainees, partnerships and faculty, our aim is to deliver more quality care in both general and specialty psychiatry to children and families in need. 

Shape your own program

The CMU Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program is new. It received its initial accreditation from ACGME and had its first class of fellows on July 1, 2019. It has been approved for 6 positions, three spaces in each of the two years required for a fellow to earn board eligibility. As a work in progress, our program presents an unusual opportunity for fellows themselves to shape the program. Although we have thought long and hard about how best to train fellows by taking advantage of local talent and resources, we have no doubt that you will shape the final products. Many aspects of the program that we describe here are subject to modification where desirable, and fellows will be largely responsible for suggesting the improvements.

Future opportunities

Although this program is young, it is not quite born yet - it can boast not only a growing and distinguished faculty, but numerous resources at our disposal. In our immediate vicinity we have two major general hospitals, one of which is a major referral center for neurosurgical conditions; there is a freestanding psychiatric hospital within a modern facility that includes adult and child/adolescent psychiatric units, an addiction unit, and long-term medical care units; there is a Veteran's Administration Medical Center; the Field Neuroscience Institute conducts basic research on psychiatric and neurological conditions; and a large and progressive community mental health center is a two-minute drive from the departmental offices. Within a 40-minute radius are other community mental health centers, a state psychiatric hospital, and large psychiatric and medical delivery systems in Flint, Michigan. On the Mount Pleasant campus, the psychology department has active clinical training and service programs that are eager to collaborate and a community mental health center with outstanding psychiatric staff.

There is not much here we cannot get for you if you need it and positions for faculty will likely be open to you when you graduate from the program.

Who should apply

We seek enthusiastic seekers who will make important contributions to our field. We will select the most promising talent available, as these individuals will help us to develop a rigorous and innovative program and they will be the "proof of concept" that we have succeeded in our educational objectives. Those who share aspects of our mission, which includes the expansion of faculty and services in Northern Michigan, are especially encouraged to apply, but others, who intend to make their special contributions to the field in other places and in other ways, will also find that our program will supply an outstanding training for whatever their personal mission in psychiatry may be.

Why choose Saginaw?

Saginaw area benefits