The Department of Behavioral Medicine at San Antonio Military Medical Center, Ft. Sam Houston, Texas (San Antonio) announces an opening for a 2-year fellowship in Clinical Health Psychology, starting September, 2012. This is a civilian position within a military medical center. The program seeks to develop professionals with the advanced training necessary to effectively assess, accurately diagnose, and successfully treat patients for whom medical illness is a primary concern and who may have a wide range of psychological difficulties. The program prepares fellows to create and direct clinical programs, develop and carry out specific treatment protocols, consult and collaborate in patient care with other providers, and educate other health care professionals.
The Clinical Health fellowship strives to balance clinical practice with didactic instruction in a 2-year program that develops advanced competencies in health psychology. The program works to stay current with leading research and cutting-edge treatment in the provision of health psychology services to manage different medical conditions, both acute and chronic. The first year entails two quarterly rotations providing individual and group treatment with a primary care population and 2 quarterly rotations with a specialty clinic population (e.g., GI, hematology/oncology, pain). The specialty clinic rotations involve shadowing experiences, individual and group therapies with clinic patients and learning from and participating with the multidisciplinary team. Fellows are given the specialty rotations of their choice in most cases.
During the first year, fellows will provide 10-15 direct patient hours per week.
For the second year, fellows create an individually tailored experience within one or more specialty clinics. Every effort is made to match fellows with their population of interest. Fellows spend 3 days per week in this specialty clinic. Fellows will provide 16-20 hours direct patient care per week during this year.
One half-day per week in each fellowship year is devoted to didactics. Numerous local, regional and national workshops are encouraged for fellows. If the fellow has not had hypnosis training, arrangements will be made to provide this training during the first year. The Army is committed to training psychologists in empirically supported therapies for PTSD, such as prolonged exposure therapy and cognitive processing therapy. This training is provided and encouraged for all fellows. BAMC facilities, the local Air Force psychology training program and the VA bring in distinguished visiting professors for presentations.
Approximately one half day per week in each fellowship year is devoted to the fellow receiving and giving supervision (to interns, residents or practica students). Another half day per week is provided to study for the licensing exam or work on the fellowship project.
The BAMC Clinical Health fellowship is committed to going beyond clinical and didactic preparation in the development of a professional psychologist. Training experiences develop leadership skills in supervision, training/education, production and application of science to the practice of psychology, treatment and program evaluation, legal and ethical practice in psychology and an ongoing awareness of the impact of issues of diversity on individuals, groups and institutions. Training in cultural competency is provided over the two years.
The Fellowship is APA-accredited. For information concerning the accreditation status of this program, please contact the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association: Telephone 202-336-5979, at the American Psychological Association, 750 First Street, N. E., Washington, DC. 20002-4242; email APAAccred@apa.org.
Applicants will need to have finished all of the requirements for graduation from an APA accredited doctoral program in psychology before they begin the fellowship. They must have completed an APA-accredited internship by the start of fellowship. First year fellows enter at the Government Service (G.S.) 11 grade, with locality adjustment pay added. They may be advanced to a G.S. 12 grade in the second year of the fellowship if they are licensed and in good standing in the program. Go to this URL to determine the salary: http://www.opm.gov/oca/09tables/indexGS.asp. Select "Complete set of locality pay tables" and then select "Locality pay area of rest of U.S." G.S. positions include generous annual and sick leave, federal holidays, low cost healthcare plans and enrollment in the G.S. pension and employee/employer-funded retirement savings plan.
For more information about the fellowship, please go to the website below, which details all BAMC fellowships and application procedures (follow links under "Education/Allied Health/Clinical Psychology to Clinical Health Psychology Fellowship"):
http://www.sammc.amedd.army.mil/staff/education/allied_health/clinical_psychology/clinical_health.asp.
Applications will be accepted until January 31, 2012. Applicants who have a training background and interest in health psychology will be offered a telephone interview by 2 or more of the clinical health faculty. On-site interviews are not required but welcomed if applicants desire. Before scheduling the interview, we ask that the applicant's doctoral program director send a letter to the fellowship director with the date scheduled for the applicant's dissertation defense (if not already complete). This is important to ensure that all doctoral requirements are met in time to start the fellowship in the month of September.
The position will be offered to the candidate who demonstrates the best fit with the program. The program is participating in a uniform notification date (UND), spearheaded by leaders in psychology fellowship training. That date next year is March 14, 2012. You may contact the Fellowship Director, Dr. Laura Avila, 210-916-5962 or laura.avila@amedd.army.mil for more information.
Laura Avila, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Director, Clinical Health Psychology Fellowship Behavioral Medicine/Internal Medicine Brooke Army Medical Center Ft. Sam Houston, TX
210-916-5962
