Monday, December 03, 2012
Pine Rest to Launch Residency Program
West Michigan will soon be home to another new medical
education program. Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services will be seeking
accreditation for a psychiatry residency program that will launch with its
first class in July, 2014.
“This is a direct response to community demand for more
psychiatrists, along with more training opportunities to support the expansion
of medical schools in Michigan,” says Pine Rest President and CEO Mark
Eastburg, PhD.
Medical school graduates are required to complete a
residency - additional training in their specialty - before entering practice.
“The breadth of services offered at Pine Rest and in our thriving medical
community provides an outstanding training experience that will equip
physicians to work in a variety of settings when they leave this program,”
added Dr. Eastburg. “We are hopeful that many will choose to stay in our
community.” Up to 60% of new physicians take jobs within 100 miles of their
residency program site.
The need for psychiatry is great both at Pine Rest and in
the community. Both the public and private sectors struggle to meet the demand
for psychiatric assessments and treatment for individuals that are in need of
psychiatric care. Pine Rest receives hundreds of calls each month from people
who need to see a psychiatrist and yet have to experience long waits.
Pine Rest was recently designated as a new teaching hospital
by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. As a result, Pine Rest can
build a new residency program and receive reimbursement primarily from
Medicare.
The proposed Pine Rest four-year program will have capacity
for eight residents per year, post-graduate year one through post-graduate year
four. Residency for psychiatrists consists of didactic and experiential
training. Clinical rotations include psychiatric inpatient and outpatient care,
general medicine experience, consultation liaison in acute care hospitals, and
exposure to neurology.
Pine Rest is the primary sponsor of the psychiatric
residency program, but the program represents another example of collaboration
among healthcare systems that again responds to deeply felt community need.
Over 15 years ago Pine Rest and Saint Mary's joined forces to create a strong
inpatient psychiatric care service.
“Once again Saint Mary's Health Care played a crucial role
in helping this project move to the next stage of development,” says Dr.
Eastburg. “We are grateful for their ongoing support and this fine example of
collaboration and leadership.”
Other organizations providing significant support to the
program include Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, the
academic and research partner; and Grand Rapids Medical Education Program,
which will provide accreditation support. Many others will participate in this
community collaborative, and share in the benefits realized by the community
through this new residency training program.
Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services has been an
institutional provider of mental health services to West
Michigan for 100 years, since its incorporation in 1910. Its
history reflects a strong commitment to health care education, having operated
a nursing school and a psychiatry residency training program under Michigan
State University from 1975 to 1995. Pine Rest continues to provide a highly
successful pre-doctoral psychology internship program and award winning medical
student clerkship rotations and elective experiences in a variety of health
care specialties. Pine Rest will carry on this tradition with the development
of a four-year psychiatry residency program.
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About Pine Rest
Pine Rest is one of the
five largest free-standing behavioral health providers in the U.S., offering a
full continuum of services including inpatient and partial hospitalization, residential
and outpatient services, addiction treatment and recovery, extensive child and
adolescent programs, senior care services, as well as specialized assessment
and treatment clinics. In addition to the main campus in Grand Rapids, Pine
Rest also has 16 outpatient locations throughout Michigan and two in Iowa.
