Curriculum

Supervision

Clinical supervision is provided on clinical rotations in individual and small group formats. Supervision for the General Psychology Clinic is conducted in groups according to program track and patient population. Interns receive at least 4 hours of supervision a week, with 3 hours provided on clinical rotations and 1 hour provided for the General Psychology Clinic. The supervision model varies based on the clinical rotation and supervisor, but generally is developmental in regards to the intern’s previous experience in the setting and with the patient population, as well as intern individual clinical training goals.

Practice and Dissemination Curriculum

Beginning in 2008 with generous funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R25DA026637, PI: Julie A. Schumacher, Program of Excellence in Practice and Dissemination of Motivational Interviewing), the UMMC Training Program began development and implementation of our Practice and Dissemination Curriculum. The curriculum was developed in response to increasing awareness of Training Program faculty that dissemination and implementation of evidence based behavioral treatments remains a major challenge for researchers, professional organizations, and federal and state agencies.

Despite the discovery of several promising therapeutic interventions for a variety of disorders, the gap between research and practice still exists and many practitioners continue to rely on treatments supported only by anecdotal and idiographic evidence. Further, although many facilities and practitioners base their treatment philosophy on evidence-based practices, the treatment provided may bear little to no resemblance to actual evidence-based practices.

We believe that research oriented doctoral training programs, internship programs, and postdoctoral fellowship programs in psychology currently represent an important mechanism through which evidence-based behavioral practices are disseminated. However, many of these programs, including our own Training Program, specialize in training individuals who seek to become academic psychologists rather than full-time practitioners. Thus, our Practice and Dissemination Curriculum is designed to foster broader dissemination and implementation of evidence-based behavioral treatments by these programs.

The intent of this curriculum is to foster ongoing dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices in the state of Mississippi and beyond, by: 1) fully integrating the curriculum into our training program, 2) instilling a desire for further dissemination and implementation work in our trainees, and 3) disseminating the curriculum as a model for training. The focus of this curriculum from 2008-13 was motivational interviewing for substance use disorders, from 2013-2016 it was exposure-based treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder, and from 2016-22 will focus on Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for substance use disorders. Beginning the 2022-2023 training year, with the generous grant support from HRSA (PI: Sarver), the focus has been on Integrated Behavioral Health.

Seminars and Grand Rounds

The UMMC Training Program offers a series of didactic seminars that cover a broad range of topics, including professional development, grant writing (See Research Opportunities below for more information), assessment and treatment approaches with specific populations, neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, research methodology, legal and ethical issues, cultural diversity, and supervision. Psychology interns attend the UMMC Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior grand rounds approximately every other week, which includes medical students, psychiatry residents and fellows, as well as faculty from psychology, psychiatry, and neurobiology and behavior research. A Research Rounds/Case Presentation series is presented by psychology interns and post docs. Interns are expected to present a job talk during the fall and a clinical case in the spring to psychology interns and post docs, psychiatry residents and fellows, and department faculty. More information regarding the interdisciplinary education programming in the department can be found here: https://www.umc.edu/Psychiatry/Curriculum. Finally, many other seminars, grand rounds and informal presentations offered by other departments are open to our trainees. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many of the departmental presentations and seminars are being conducted virtually.

The UMMC Psychology Internship Training Program has a strong reputation for providing excellent professional development seminars aimed at psychology interns who intend to have an academic/research career. The professional development seminars include topics that range from negotiating salaries and start up packages to financial planning to work/life balance.