The overall goal of the fellowship is to help each fellow develop the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to enjoy a productive life as a child-adolescent psychiatrist in a clinical, administrative or research career. To this end, fellows are engaged in a progressive series of clinical and educational experiences. These include: closely supervised clinical outpatient and inpatient patient care, specific didactic courses (about 7 hours a week), supervised individual, family, group and milieu treatment, consultation and liaison in both hospital and community settings, including schools, courts and a community mental health center.

All fellows are required to gain competence in addressing mental disorders from infancy to late adolescence; consequently, developmental considerations are at the core of our biopsychosocial conceptual approach. Fellows are expected to be able to evaluate and follow patients from all socioeconomic and cultural levels, and to graduate with skills related to in-depth and evidence-based work with children, their families and related crucial systems. This involves administrative skills, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and knowledge of current research, as well as clinical and educational experience.

The clinical experiences include inpatient and residential treatment at the Integris Mental Health Center - Spencer, outpatient child psychiatry in the University Of Oklahoma’s Williams Pavilion and consultation liaison at The Children’s Hospital of Oklahoma, the only comprehensive children’s hospital in the state, as well as a rotation in child neurology, work in a diagnostic-therapeutic nursery in a local community mental health center, and consultation to local courts and schools.

Electives in the second year allow the fellow to study areas of research interest or to follow up clinical areas in which he/she wishes more experiences. In recent years, fellows have chosen electives in the sleep laboratory, neuropsychology, and such pediatric areas as genetics, metabolism, endocrinology, and hematology/oncology as well as trauma-disaster research. Department members are involved in research on psychological resilience, artistically gifted adolescents, PTSD and terrorism. Indeed, the Chair is Director of the Terrorism and Disaster Branch of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Didactic seminars include courses on: interviewing, infant/child/adolescent development and psychopathology, genetics, epidemiology, psychodynamics, learning theory, statistics, reading the scientific literature, psychopharmacology, and variety of specific individual family and group therapies. A special half-day interdisciplinary seminar in child abuse meets weekly during the school year for first-year fellows. One of the few nationally sponsored programs of its kind, it involves work with numerous community groups and a mock trial. In addition, weekly departmental rounds in general psychiatry and in child psychiatry add to fellows’ learning experiences as does the availability of rounds and training experiences in neurology, pediatrics and in the other departments of large teaching hospitals.

Each fellow has a minimum of two hours of individual therapy supervision a week as well as many hours of ongoing supervised patient management, and serving as a cotherapist in family and group psychotherapy. Ongoing live supervision in clinics involves in the in-room presence of faculty and use of one-way-mirrors. All fellows are required to maintain psychotherapy cases throughout the two years (individual, family and group, both short-term and long-term), and to have continuous experiences in other modalities of care.

James Allen, M.D., FRCP(C) M.P.H.
Professor, Training Director of The Child-Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, Rainbolt Chair of Child Psychiatry and Chief of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Seminar Leader: family therapy, statistics and research methodology, child development, neurodevelopment, psychotherapeutic approaches, and administration.

Robert Beasley, Jr., M.D. (Volunteer Faculty)
Clinical Professor. Seminar Leader: latency age, cultural issues, Native American issues, support group.

Anne B. Cuccio, M.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor. Consultation/Liaison Co-Director. Seminar Leader: Consultation, Current Literature and Evidence-Based Medicine.

Patricia McKnight, M.D. (Volunteer Faculty)
Clinical Professor. Psychoanalyst. Seminar Leader: journal club and continuous case conference.

Betty Pfefferbaum, M.D., J.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. Director, Terrorism and Disaster Branch of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. Seminar Leader: ethics, forensics, research.

Shree Vinekar, M.D.
Professor. Director, Outpatient Diagnostic Intake Clinic, Medication Clinic. Seminar Leader: latency, adolescence, neuroscience underpinnings of treatment.

John Raizen, M.D. (Volunteer Faculty)
Clinical Assistant Professor. Supervisor Inpatient Integris Mental Health-Spencer.

Robyn Cowperthwaite, M.D. (Volunteer Faculty)
Clinical Assistant Professor. Co-director Diagnostic Therapeutic Nursery.

Sandra Allen, Ph.D.
Professor. Coordinator Community Schools Program. Director, Outpatient Diagnostic Intake Clinic. Consultation/Liaison Co-Director. Seminar leader: play therapy, consultation/liaison, prevention and community work.

Steve Miller, Ph.D. (Volunteer Faculty)
Assistant Professor. Psychoanalyst. Supervisor, individual therapy.

Karen Wyche, Ph.D.
Professor. Seminar Leader: cultural issues, research.

Martha Baldwin-Beveridge, ACSW (Volunteer Faculty)
Clinical Assistant Professor. Supervisor, marital and family therapy.

Michael Brand, Ph.D., M.S.W.
Associate Professor. Seminar Leader: substance abuse, quality assurance.

Donna Hammond, L.C.S.W.
Clinical Assistant Professor. Supervisor and co-therapist for family therapy, family group therapy, and group therapy. Seminar Leader: family and marital therapy, group therapy.

Suzanne Whittlesey, A.C.S.W.
Associate Professor. Coordinator for fellows' rotation through outpatient clinics, and assistant to outpatient director in monitoring fellows' outpatient caseloads. Seminar Leader: family assessment.

Barbara Bonner, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Pediatrics. Chief, Child/Adolescent Sexual Offender Program in Pediatric Psychology. Seminar leader: Interdisciplinary Training Program (ITP) in child abuse.

Jan Culbertson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Pediatrics. Director of Neuropsychological Services.

Fran Morris, M.A. (Volunteer Faculty)
Clinical Professor. Co-coordinator of the diagnostic and therapeutic nursery.

Julie Parke, M.D.
Professor, Child Neurology.

Piers Blackett, M.D.
Professor, Department of Pediatrics (Genetics-Endocrinology, Metabolism).

Mark Wolraich, M.D.
Professor, Department of Pediatrics (Behavioral Pediatrics).

William Reiner, M.D.
Professor, Department of Urology (Pediatric Urology). Professor, Department of Psychiatry (Child/Adolescent). Director, Psychosexual Development Clinic (Child/Adolescent).

Interviews are required of all candidates, and are conducted from July through November of the year prior to anticipated entry into the program.

Application may be obtained from Child-adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Coordinator, Joan Willard, 920 Stanton L. Young Blvd, WP3053, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73104 or telephone number (405) 271-5251 ex. 47607.