Interns will spend at least 10 hours per week delivering direct psychological services face-to-face with patients. Services include, but are not limited to, the following areas.
Behavioral Health Inpatient Unit
Behavioral Health Services operates an inpatient unit for adults and adolescents at Flagstaff Medical Center. Doctoral interns will have opportunities to perform psychosocial assessments, or PSAs, and do consultations for psychological testing and neurocognitive screening.
Medical consultations
On the medical floors at FMC, doctoral interns will have opportunities to do consultations with medical patients. These consultations may include psychological testing, neurocognitive screening, evaluation for decision making capacity or evaluation for behaviors affecting the patient’s medical condition. The doctoral intern will be able to interact with medical staff and contribute to the care of the medical patients.
Bariatric evaluations
Behavioral Health Services supports the NAH Weight Management Clinic by performing comprehensive evaluations of patients seeking bariatric surgery. Doctoral interns will be trained in this specialized evaluation and will have opportunities to evaluate prospective bariatric surgery patients. They will also be able to attend the Bariatric Support Group, which meets monthly throughout the year. Doctoral interns will interact with program staff, including surgeons, bariatricians, nutritionists and critical support staff.
Outpatient therapy
Doctoral interns are expected to see outpatients in psychotherapy throughout the year, for either short- term or long-term therapy as indicated, using evidence-based models of psychotherapy. Outpatient therapy may include individual sessions with a variety of outpatients, and/or group therapy. The doctoral intern may have the opportunity to help facilitate problem-solving or psychoeducational groups for outpatients who have specific medical concerns, such as obesity, diabetes or cardiac issues. Under the integrated care collaborative model, the doctoral intern will provide behavioral and cognitive strategies for primary care patients at NAHMG – Flagstaff in conjunction with regular consultation with medical professionals. Sources for psychotherapy patients are varied and can include previous inpatients, referrals from the community and referrals from NAHMG – Flagstaff.
Regarding treatment, the doctoral interns will be trained in Problem-Solving Treatment, or PST, an evidence-based approach to the treatment of behavioral problems. PST is useful in general outpatient treatment and is particularly effective in integrated care where treatment with the patient is brief and time is limited.
Integrated care
Over the last three years, Behavior Health Services has partnered with NAHMG – Flagstaff to offer patients behavioral services integrated with primary care. The doctoral intern will receive in-depth training and experience in this important, rapidly evolving part of Behavioral Health Services. This training will include close interaction and consultation with the primary care team, and training and use of a treatment model focused on brief, evidence-based interventions within the medical setting. The modes of intervention have included work with individual primary care patients as well as groups focused on specific health problems such as weight or diabetes management.