Psychiatry Residency Program - Welcome Page Every year, a new group of colleagues joins the family of mental health caregivers in the country and begins the four-year psychiatry residency program at the Iran Psychiatric Teaching Hospital, becoming proficient in the various dimensions of this unique branch of medicine.

Dear residents!

This page will help you start your residency with more awareness and peace of mind.

Table of Contents:

• Weekly Schedule, Four-Year Program
• About Interacting with Patients
• Guidelines, Programs, and Useful Resources
• Your Educational Objectives
• Some Guidelines and Regulations

Weekly Schedule, Four-Year Program

Your weekly schedule is typically as follows; however, always check with your attending physician and their assistant for the latest schedule updates and evening programs such as supervision sessions.

Year 1:

• General Psychiatry
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Addiction Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Emergency Psychiatry

Year 2:

• General Psychiatry
• Elective Rotation 1
• Elective Rotation 2

Year 3:

• General Psychiatry
• Elective Rotation 3
• Research

Year 4:

• General Psychiatry
• Chief Resident

In addition to actively participating in three-month rotations, you should start thinking about your dissertation from the first year and gradually work on it until the middle of the last year.

In addition to the above minimums, during your residency, you can create effective and diverse extracurricular opportunities to strengthen your skills and gain scientific and clinical experience for yourself. You can benefit from easy access to your senior and young colleagues and collaborate with them, thus enriching and making your short and precious residency years more enjoyable.

About Interacting with Patients

When dealing with psychiatric patients, follow the general principles of professional and human communication with patients, as in other departments and hospitals. These principles are both ethical and effective.

• Maintain professional dress standards; This helps you establish a safe, professional, and respectful relationship with patients and their families while maintaining clinical boundaries.
• Aggression from patients is rare; If you encounter an aggressive patient, safety is the top priority. If you feel threatened, step away and then return to the patient's bedside with the guidance of your senior colleague and, if necessary, with the assistance of hospital security. If you have concerns, discuss them with your attending physician and learn calming techniques.
• If you encounter non-clinical requests from patients (such as asking to use your phone or get supplies), politely but firmly decline their request while maintaining a professional and empathetic demeanor. For example, you could pause for a moment to let them finish their sentence and then calmly explain that unfortunately, you cannot fulfill their request due to hospital policies. You could suggest that they discuss this need with their treating physician.
• When interacting with patients, follow the general rules of human communication; For example, avoid speaking too loudly or too softly, respect personal space, do not keep your hands in your pockets or behind your back, and actively listen to everyone for at least a few seconds.
• Manage your reactions when interacting with patients; A small reaction from us to a patient's words or behavior can cause great suffering for them or their families.
• Minimize cell phone use during patient visits to minimize the potential for any concerns or misunderstandings, such as recording conversations, ignoring the patient, etc.
• During patient visits, you can bring your textbook and refer to relevant sections while listening to the patient and colleagues and relating it to your clinical experience. (See the Useful Educational Resources section).
• Everything we hear about patients in clinical sessions and educational rounds is confidential and must be kept confidential.
• Evaluation of mental health is only permitted in the context of professional activity and only with the patient's consent. Refrain from assessing the mental health of individuals who are not officially your patients and avoid using psychiatric terms to describe individuals' unique and multifaceted personalities.

Guidelines, Programs, and Useful Resources

There are many valuable and useful resources for psychiatric education for general practitioners. Here are some of the good resources available in the hospital library.

DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria App:

This app allows you to search for the names of psychiatric disorders and view their diagnostic criteria. Quick access to the criteria during rounds or clinical sessions helps to understand the patient and memorize the criteria. Get the app here.

Mental Status Examination and Physical Examination Checklist:

This one-page summary includes components of the psychiatric mental status examination, as well as common symptoms, signs, and syndromes. You can print this sheet and use it to identify symptoms and signs while listening to the patient during rounds or clinical sessions. Get the worksheet here.

Kaplan & Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry

This valuable resource is relatively concise and less focused on scientific disagreements, making it a clear and suitable resource for getting started with any topic. It is one of the official sources for evaluating residents in our country.

Medscape App

When practicing medicine, some of the features of this valuable app can be very useful; For example, quick access to appropriate drug doses, a corrected QT interval calculator, drug half-life, and dose adjustment based on kidney function.

Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry

This book introduces you to consulting with colleagues in other medical specialties, as well as valuable skills such as "breaking bad news" and "managing the dying patient." This will be one of your valuable experiences in general centers such as Rasool Akram Hospital or Ali Asghar Children's Hospital.

Comprehensive Psychiatry by Kaplan & Sadock

In this valuable resource, the various aspects of basic and clinical sciences related to psychiatry are explained in more detail, and some of the ambiguities and disagreements are discussed. This is also one of the official sources for evaluating residents in our country.

Signs and Symptoms in Psychiatry by Sims

You can use the glossary at the end of Kaplan & Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry to see a brief definition of a psychiatric sign or symptom. However, for a deep and accurate review, consider looking at this reputable source.

Forensic Psychiatry

This book deals with the legal and judicial aspects of psychiatry so that psychiatrists are familiar with the minimum requirements in this field.

Ethical Code of the Iranian Society of Psychiatrists

This short text, which is also one of the sources for evaluating residents, outlines the professional standards of an Iranian psychiatrist and their duties to their clients and society.

Supportive Psychotherapy: A Practical Guide with Clinical Examples

After becoming proficient in phenomenological psychiatry, you will gradually become familiar with the basics and methods of various psychotherapies. This book provides numerous examples of patient-therapist dialogue and explains the correct way to think about the patient in each situation, and therefore it is a suitable option for your introduction to this complex world.

Educational Objectives

You can download the educational curriculum for psychiatry residency approved by the Ministry of Health and Treatment of our country, revised in 1397, from here. In this detailed document, in addition to explaining the history and values, the necessary competencies of a psychiatrist are listed in detail. In addition, the rotations of each of the residency years are also mentioned.

According to this program, the expected outcomes for a graduate of psychiatry include:

• Be familiar with the history and developments of psychiatry in Iran and the world.
• Be familiar with the biological, psychological, social, cultural and spiritual bases of diseases.
• Have the ability to evaluate, counsel and treat psychiatric disorders, psychological and interpersonal problems, and provide ongoing care services.
• Have acquired the ability to manage and supervise mental health service providers.
• Have acquired the necessary skills for planning mental health at the community level (at least in the area covered by the comprehensive psychiatric center).
• Have acquired the ability and appropriate attitude for the comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation of all psychiatric disorders as well as common medical disorders related to psychiatry.
• Have acquired the ability to conduct applied research in the field of psychiatry.
• Observe the principles of professional ethics in their work.

In addition, you can download the 2021 version of the Milestones in Psychiatry developed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) from here. This council is a reputable private non-profit organization in the United States and one of the sources for developing the psychiatry residency curriculum in our country. These milestones carefully define the stages of progress of a psychiatry resident in the various dimensions of the required competencies. With its help, you can identify your strengths and weaknesses and know the next step to improve each of your abilities. In each field, reaching level 4 is the goal for the assistant, and level 5 is considered its extraordinary limit.

Guidelines and Regulations

You can see some of the regulations and guidelines related to your residency period below; In important cases, be sure to ask the center's education officials for the latest changes to these documents.

• Internal Regulations for Resident Duty
• Professional Principles of Residents and Their Regulations
• Quality of Welfare Facilities Survey Form
• Resident Clinical Skills Assessment Form at the End of the Season
• Medical Record Documentation Instructions
• Instructions for Access Levels to Medical Record Information
• Dress Standards
• Hospital Organization Chart