Course Director

H. Jonathan Polan, M.D.
(212)746-3682
jpolan@med.cornell.edu

Course Coordinator

Rebecca Hellman
(212)746-3231
rahellm@med.cornell.edu

Course Goals

1. A fundamental understanding of psychiatry as a medical specialty.
2. A basic working knowledge of psychopathology, psychiatric emergencies, and treatments.
3. The ability to perform a competent basic psychiatric diagnostic interview.
4. The ability to formulate a psychiatric differential diagnosis, problem list, and initial treatment plan.
5. A current view of psychiatric practice.

Specific course learning objectives can be found by clicking on the link on the upper right.

Course Description

The psychiatry clerkship is a six-week course taken in the third or fourth year. Students are assigned to an in-patient, outpatient or consultation liaison service at the Payne Whitney Clinic Manhattan or Westchester campuses.

Student Responsibilities

1. Clinical involvement: Students develop a professional rapport with their patients, know them, their histories, and mental statuses well and, under appropriate supervision, become directly involved in their patients’ care.
2. Clinical responsibility: Students function as a member of the clinical team by carrying out jobs that are delegated to them by their residents, fellows, and attendings.
3. An academic approach: In addition to the required textbook, students are expected to research the current medical literature about their patients' specific problems and to apply what they learn to their cases.

Didactic Sessions

Students attend a series of small group tutorials and seminars designed specifically for them. Faculty preceptors teach interviewing and history taking, mental status examination and how to write up and present cases. There are other sessions covering psychiatric differential diagnosis and treatment of the major disorders. In addition, with the house staff, they attend teaching rounds, professor rounds, grand rounds, and house staff teaching conferences.

Evaluations and Examinations

Each student's performance is assessed by the residents and attending physicians on the student’s assigned services, as well as by his/her small group preceptors. Narrative support for the assigned grade is supplied by each evaluator. The written exam, consisting of multiple-choice and short answer questions, occurs on the last day of the clerkship. The oral exam is a one-hour exercise in which a faculty member observes the student interview a new patient, hears the student’s presentation of this patient, and then conducts a Q & A to elicit the student’s differential diagnosis and treatment plan. This occurs during the last week of the rotation.

Grading

Each student's performance is determined by the weighted average of the preceptors’ and residents’ assessments, class participation, and exam grades. The clerkship director writes a composite narrative evaluation integrating all the narratives received from the preceptors, attendings, and residents. Clinical evaluations count 55% of the overall grade, the small group preceptor evaluations count 20%, and the two exams together count 25% of the final grade.