Residency Program in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

The Division of Pediatric Psychiatry of the University of Arkansas Department of Psychiatry offers an ACGME approved two-year residency training program in child and adolescent psychiatry.

The program is based at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), the location of the program’s primary outpatient clinic, and has an important affiliation with the Arkansas State Hospital, Methodist Behavioral Hospital, Programs for Young Adults at St. Vincent’s Hospital, and a school based program with the North Little Rock, School District.  The program’s most basic goal is to help the resident achieve clinical competence in child and adolescent psychiatry.  This is carried out under conditions which range from high supervision/low autonomy in the first year to increasing autonomy and less supervision in the second year.

The didactic program has a two-year curriculum, keeping the residents together as a group throughout the two years of training.  The didactic program provides an emphasis on child development, family dynamics and relationships, and the types of effects which certain life events are likely to work upon children and parents.  The death of a sibling divorce, adoption, and other separations and losses are the experiential side of the psychiatric evaluation; empathic and focused interviewing will undoubtedly remain a skill intrinsic to psychiatry regardless of changes wrought by an external force and constitute an emphasis of this training program.  The core seminar is a weekly two-hour meeting, usually with two distinct topics.  A third hour is devoted to a continuous case conference, which includes patient interviews, role play, and reviewing video taped treatment episodes.  Throughout the two years, the resident has a minimum of one hour of service specific supervision and one hour of psychotherapy supervision each week.

The first year of training consists of two rotations. A six-month full-time rotation at the Arkansas State Hospital Adolescent Service is under the immediate direction of a division faculty psychiatrist and consists of one-half time on the acute service, and one-half time on the sexual offender service. The other first-year rotation is divided between the Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic and the Consultation Service.  The resident on the consultation service responds to requests for psychiatric evaluation for all patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital – those on inpatient services and those being seen in pediatric outpatient clinics and in the emergency room.  This resident also devotes part-time to the psychiatry outpatient clinic.  The resident on the consultation service has freedom to provide continuity of care to children and families when it is indicated.

The second year of training focuses on work in the outpatient clinic, Methodist Behavioral Hospital acute inpatient service, and elective outpatient activities.  The emphasis in the clinic is on interviewing, diagnostic evaluation, and multimodal patient management.  Elective opportunities include our school consultation program, pediatric neurology, genetics, sleep disorders, family treatment program, eating disorder clinic, and a developmental clinic at the Dennis Developmental Center.   During this year residents are also encouraged to develop an area of special clinical or research interest.  Past examples include working with the Family Treatment Program for victims of sexual abuse, working in an underserved community mental health center, identifying quality measures in psychotherapy, and psychotropic medication utilization in the State of Arkansas.

For further information contact:

Brian M. Kubacak, M.D.  Program Director
Leah Stanley , Program Coordinator

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training Program
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Child Study Center
Located at Arkansas Children’s Hospital
1120 Marshall Street, Slot 654
Little Rock, Arkansas   72202-3591

tel:  501-364-4670

fax:  501-364-1592