Welcome!
 
Our Psychiatry Residency program started in 2014 as AOA and converted to a full ACGME approved residency in 2017. There are four positions per year. Residents take advantage of the unique collaboration between Arnot Health’s two local hospitals and Elmira Psychiatric Center (EPC), literally across the street from the St. Joseph Campus.
 
The training is structured in 13 blocks with the first years of residency covering the mandatory requirements of training. Inpatient psychiatry is done in three blocks each on two different psychiatric units, one acute at St. Joseph and one intermediate/long term at EPC. In addition, residents value a block rotation inpatient at the VA hospital in Wilkes Barre.
 
The second year covers rotations in Addiction, Emergency Psychiatry, Child, Geriatrics, and CL. By the end of the second year, the residents can extend one of the previous rotations or they have a choice of some elective blocks. They will start to see some patients in an outpatient setting. This will lead to a full-time 12 months rotation in outpatient in the third year of training.
 
Some of our previous residents chose to pursue child psychiatry fellowships. The ones who complete their training here design most of their fourth year around rotations as a senior resident (helping and mentoring the interns on their first months of inpatient), junior attending, administration, research or choice of other electives. They continue to follow some of their outpatient's long term.
 
We prioritize the training, education, and wellbeing of our residents. Case loads are small and ample time is given for evaluation and paperwork. On busy services, residents sometime might be doubled up to keep work manageable. Some flexibility in scheduling is designed to allow pace increase or decrease based on where a particular resident might be in her/his training. There is no overnight call on Psychiatry rotations and the work hours weekly reports average around 60 with 1.4 to 1.8 days off per week. Light moonlighting is an option to senior residents in several settings.
 
Starting as an AOA program, we initially attracted graduates from several osteopathic schools, with a preponderance of candidates from our associated medical school, LECOM. Our residents come from all over the United States (for example Alabama, California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Montana). Now with ACGME and NRMP Match, the program is interviewing MDs and DOs from all over the world.
 
Our first graduates love this area and this program and chose to sign here, a fantastic addition and a telling commitment to the growth of the program. There are still plenty of opportunities for work in the area after graduation, and we hope many of our future graduates will choose to stay around, but we also expect them to be ready to practice anywhere in the US.
 
The faculty is a small group of committed psychiatrists and psychologists of all age groups and level of expertise who provide individual and group supervision and teaching. Residents have a significant role in teaching and cover a fraction of the protected time for didactics. Their case presentations and M&M conferences are attended by those responsible for making decisions and many positive changes have been implemented as a result.
 
On the inpatient rotations residents run several groups every week. Plans for the immediate future include starting an outpatient psychotherapy group.
 
What might have been inconceivable just a few years ago, the psychiatry residency program in Elmira has become a steady and reliable factor in providing the patients of this area with the necessary mental health treatment. Besides Arnot Health and EPC, the local county officials, the Office of Mental Health of the State of New York and all the private practitioners have been extremely supportive of all the needs for the continuous growth of our program.
 
The opening of a medical school campus in Elmira, the expansion of the local airport, the tens of millions of dollars invested by New York in reinvigorating its state parks and many local developments are also exciting things to keep in mind as your relocate to this area.
 
Mihai Dascalu, MD
Psychiatry Residency Program Director