Elective Years 3 and 4: Community Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Community Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Diversification = R1 Psychiatry

University of Alberta Students:  Placement Contact: Chelsey Konowalyk  umepsych@ualberta.ca
780-492-7604

Visiting Medical Students: visitingelectives@ualberta.ca

This elective provides the student with exposure to normal child and family development, and to a wide range of psychiatric disturbances and disorders of infancy, childhood and adolescence. The student will become acquainted with a number of community child and adolescent psychiatry programs, including outpatient services for infants through adolescents, day treatment programs for 6 to 18 year olds (CASA) and residential treatment for adolescents (CASA). At the CASA site there is possible exposure to the Family Therapy Team as well as telepsychiatry. By the end of the elective, the student will have a good grasp of what is involved in the practice of community child and adolescent psychiatry. He/she will have acquired basic knowledge about how to use a bio-psycho-social approach to understand, diagnose and treat some common developmental and psychiatric problems of infancy, childhood and adolescence.

Knowledge to Gain: Rationale for the use of the bio-psycho-social model to assess and treat developmental and psychiatric problems of infancy, childhood and adolescence. Awareness of multi-modal, multi-disciplinary treatment interventions including play therapy, individual therapy, group therapy, family therapy and pharmacotherapy; understanding of when and where to refer an infant, child or adolescent requiring psychiatric services.

Skills to acquire: Basic skills in using the bio-psycho-social model to assess and treat common developmental and psychiatric disorders in infants, children and adolescents; basic medication management of common neuropsychiatric disorders. How to work effectively with a multi-disciplinary team.

Attitudes to learn: Respect, compassion and optimism towards patients with psychiatric disturbances and their families; appreciation of the importance of addressing biological, psychological and social needs of our patients and their families; understanding of the value of a multi-disciplinary approach to assessment and treatment.

No prerequisites necessary, but is preferred that medical students have completed their student intern rotation in psychiatry