Special Fellowship in Advanced Psychiatry

Advanced Fellowship in Mental Illness Research and Treatment –South Central Mental Illness Research, Education, & Clinical Center

This two-year fellowship program is designed to train future veteran affairs leaders for research careers in a rapidly evolving health care arena by providing a firm foundation in mental health research, education, and clinical care. The fellowship offers four specialty tracks.

This track trains researchers who are well-versed in the issues of access, utilization, outcomes, and effectiveness of geriatric mental health disorders. The specific educational activities will serve to enhance knowledge of the clinical issues underlying the health services issues.

This track helps investigators to translate discoveries in brain science into clinically effective treatments for the brain-based illnesses like depression and bipolar disorder.

This track develops investigator and clinical careers in treatment for substance use disorders including opioid, stimulant, nicotine, and alcohol dependence. Our clinical trials combine medications with various behavioral therapies such as contingency management for drug dependence. We also examine the pathophysiology of addictions using genetics, neuroimaging, and acute drug administration studies in humans.

The neuroimaging research includes both SPECT and functional MRI (fMRI) to detect and treat cocaine-induced cerebral perfusion defects and to predict pharmacotherapy outcome. These clinical studies are complemented by pre-clinical laboratories in behavioral pharmacology, immunology, and molecular genetics.

This track explores brain and behavior relationships in mental illness that influence their cause and treatment. Conditions such as anxiety disorders and complications of impulsivity, aggression, language, and mood disturbances are presently under study, but in principle this approach is applicable to a wide range of conditions. The trainee will be exposed to a variety of disciplines, techniques, and approaches, and will have the opportunity to develop their own focus based on their interest and training. The applicant will be guided toward generation of hypothesis-driven research that leads to measurement (e.g., brain structure or function, neuropsychological performance) and the testing of a therapeutic intervention.

The fellowship training program is designed to create an environment that fosters professional growth and development in young investigators, allowing them to mature into independent researchers capable of and interested in pursuing independent research that contributes to the overall veterans affair's mission of health care. Each fellow will have a committee of mentors, consisting of two investigators and a clinical supervisor. Consultants from off-site faculty may be included. Dr. Kunik will be on each fellow's committee to provide administrative oversight and to monitor the fellow's progress toward completing each specific task required by the fellowship.

The second committee member will be the primary mentor, who will have experience conducting research in the topic areas that the fellow chooses to pursue. This mentor will have primary responsibility for guiding the fellow to meet the research and education goals.

The third committee member will be a clinician who supervises the fellow in clinical activities in one of the major mental health clinics at Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The clinical mentor will provide clinical experiences and feedback regarding the fellow's development in assessment and treatment of specific mental disorders. Fellows will meet with their primary mentor on a biweekly basis and with their mentoring committee quarterly. The program director will meet with the fellow semiannually to review the fellow's progress.

At the beginning of the fellowship year, the mentoring committee will meet with each fellow to individualize the training experience, with the goal of compensating for any academic or clinical deficits, and to enhance the fellow's existing expertise, academic preparation, and research interests.

Expectations:

All fellows are expected to:

• Complete course work specific to their specialty track
• Participate in ongoing research projects and grant writing in their area of interest
• Participate in one of the MIRECC groups (Access, Returning Combat Veterans, Geropsychiatry)
• Develop a research project in their area of interest that should result in a publication in a peer-reviewed journal and/or grant application
• Make a presentation at a national meeting
• Participate in clinical activities as assigned
• Attend the annual MIRECC retreat
• Attend the annual fellowship national meeting
• Participate in teaching opportunities (e.g., Faculty Education Initiatives Skill Building Program; Psychiatry Journal Clubs)
• Attend biweekly MIRECC Fellowship video teleconferences