VAB-HSS Program - Rotations and Curriculum

VA rotation sites

Brockton VA

The Brockton campus is home base for mental health and the VAB-HSS program. It houses two acute admitting inpatient psychiatry units with 52 beds, two non-admitting psychiatry units, a state-of-the-art Neuromodulation Suite with ECT, IV ketamine, and TMS that was opened in summer of 2023, a residential unit for substance abuse treatment, a subacute rehabilitation center, and an inpatient palliative care/hospice unit. Also located on campus is an active urgent care where residents conduct admission assessments on-call. The Brockton campus has a large outpatient mental health clinic where residents complete most of their outpatient clinical training.

Jamaica Plain VA

The Jamaica Plain campus (JP) largely consists of outpatient services, including the specialty neurology clinics through which residents rotate (memory, movement disorders, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, general neurology). Residents also have the option to complete a portion of their outpatient work at the JP campus. 

In PGY4 year, residents are also able to rotate at other VA locations across the country, with some residents having spent a month rotating at Providence VA for neuromodulation with Noah Phillips and Seattle VA for addiction psychiatry. 

West Roxbury VA

The West Roxbury campus is the primary medical and surgical hospital for VA Boston and it is here that residents get emergency and inpatient medicine exposure and later return for consultation-liaison psychiatry rotations and call for PGY3 residents. 

Harvard-Affiliated Non-VA Rotations

The VAB-HSS program allows for up to 2 non-VA rotations per year, allowing residents to access rotations at virtually any neighboring hospital or specialty service they are interested in. Residents have taken this opportunity to rotate through Mass General Brigham, McLean, and Beth Israel Deaconess among other options. 

McLean Belmont and SouthEast Campus

McLean Hospital is a leader in psychiatric care, research, and education. It is the largest psychiatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, is consistently ranked among the top psychiatric hospitals in the country, and home to the nation’s oldest and globally renowned research program in a psychiatric hospital setting. McLean Hospital has famously been represented in a variety of literary and film representations of mental health treatment. Our residents rotate at the Belmont campus and the Southeast campus in Middleborough. While at McLean, residents will have exposure to geriatric psychiatry, mood disorders, and complete their child & adolescent psychiatry training. Residents will work alongside MGH/McLean residents and other HMS-affiliated residents rotating at McLean Hospital. 

Additional Curricula

Didactics

All residents including those rotating with medicine, neurology, and offsite rotations are excused from clinical duties on Wednesdays for a half day or a full day (depending on PGY) to focus on didactic curriculum. Our residents benefit from the camaraderie fostered by sharing a protected in-person didactic day, and the didactic day helps to prepare residents for patient encounters in psychiatry, neurology, medicine, and on call. 

Topics include psychiatric diagnosis and interviewing, psychopharmacology, ethics, neuropsychiatry, human development, supportive psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), cognitive processing therapy (CPT), motivational interviewing (MI), psychodynamic psychotherapy, consultation-liaison psychiatry, human sexuality, history of psychiatry, careers in psychiatry, leadership development, transition to practice, morbidity and mortality conference, and many more. We are particularly proud of our outstanding faculty, focus on evidence-based care, and education innovation. Highlights include: psychopharmacology with Dr. David Osser, the founder of the Psychopharmacology Algorithm Project.

Harvard Day

Harvard Day is an event held each autumn that allows Psychiatry residents from all five Harvard residency programs to come together for a day of scholarship. Each year, one of the Harvard residency programs hosts the day and chooses a theme for which they select a keynote speaker and develop various breakout seminars.

Harvard Mysell Day and VAB-HSS Research Day 

Harvard Mysell Day and VAB-HSS Research Day are held each spring. Harvard Mysell Day allows all Harvard psychiatry residency programs to come together and share their research at a large poster session. A renowned psychiatrist who has dedicated a substantial portion of his/her career to research is asked to present as a keynote speaker. The keynote speaker presents their research and shares lunch with the residents for a career planning Q&A. VABHSS also  holds the VAB-HSS Research Day in the spring, allowing VAB-HSS faculty and  residents to share  their research with each other and celebrate the accomplishments within our program.

Grand Rounds 

Grand Rounds is a twice-monthly lunchtime series where VAB-HSS residents have the  opportunity to meet nationally renowned experts in Psychiatry. Grand Rounds is built into the Wednesday Academic Day with lunch provided by VAB-HSS. As a VA flagship facility, the VA Boston Healthcare system makes its Grand Rounds available virtually, with CME, to all VA facilities across the country. Additionally, PGY4 residents have the opportunity to present in grand rounds, teaching to a national audience of psychiatrists.

...and more rotations are being added each year!

Additionally, PGY3 residents participate in PTSD clinic where they learn to practice Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and receive supervision for practicing it. They also receive supervision for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) integrating skills and knowledge from the didactic curriculum.

VA Fellowships 

The VA Advanced Fellowship programs provide unique preparation for future leaders in healthcare by providing hands-on mentored educational experiences to develop skills in specific clinical areas and more broadly for healthcare system and healthcare education system transformation through policy, system redesign, and research. Through creative partnerships, use of new technology, and innovative educational modalities, the VA Advanced Fellowships Program promotes and fosters the highest standards of leadership, intellectual integrity, research, and patient care. Harvard South Shore residents may apply to select fellowships as a post-graduate year. 

Research

Research training at VAB-HSS has two aims:

1. For all residents: to become lifelong learners who can critically evaluate and apply scientific evidence to their professional careers.
2. For self-selected residents: to provide opportunities to build the skills, attitudes, and relationships needed to establish research as substantive aspects of their careers.

Direct involvement in scholarly and research activities can take many forms during a resident’s time at VAB-HSS:

• Some residents informally identify research mentors, at any time in their training, to do literature reviews or research projects.
• Others choose to do a scholarly elective in PGY-4.
• The Resident Pathways to Research (RPTR) is a multi-year, graded, stepwise introduction to  research during PGY-3 and PGY-4. The RPTR is designed for psychiatry residents who are  considering a career with a substantive component of mental health research. Residents on the research track will have protected time in PGY3 and PGY4 for research.