The Behavioral Medicine (BMED) Track:

The Behavioral Medicine (BMED) Track provides experiences in an academic general hospital setting encouraging academic careers in psychology as it relates to health. While the training experiences in this track overlap substantially with the CBT track, the clinical research interest of the candidate should be primarily in health psychology/behavioral medicine.

Interns in this track will receive intensive training designed to provide

1. Up-to-date knowledge of health psychology clinical research methods and outcomes
2. Knowledge about psychosocial prevention and intervention approaches as they relate to medical illness, and
3. A foundation of experience in formulating and implementing empirically-based CBT interventions

Treatment/Assessment/Evaluation:
For the outpatient experience, the intern will have roughly one-half BMED patients and one-half CBT patients who do not have medical comorbidity. The BMED program and internship are closely linked to the CBT program and internship track. Patients are referred to Behavioral Medicine from the various medical services at MGH.

The BMED track provides interns with experience evaluating and treating patients with conditions representing a spectrum of medical diagnosis. The focus of the Behavioral Medicine Program is on brief interventions designed to enhance medical and psychiatric outcomes for patients. This is designed to maintain patient flow and allow responsiveness to the medical services. The evaluation is therefore key in terms of setting realistic and attainable goals. To insure that experience with a variety of medical diagnoses is achieved, as is specialization with several, interns track the number of patiens seen from each disorder or service. Patient assignments are adjusted to create diversity in each intern's case load. Supervision provided in both individual and group formats is designed to offer a variety of perspectives on the care of patients. In all cases, supervision is designed to combine perspectives based on empirical research and enhanced with clinical experience. The clinical training requirement for BMED interns is 10 patient-contact hours per week. Typically, interns schedule approximately 12 patient hours per week to insure a full 10 hours of contact. The BMED and CBT tracks are closely linked, and BMED interns will have a mix of BMED and general CBT cases, in order to insure a comprehensive foundation of skills. BMED interns will learn the most up to date CBT approaches from the CBT training, and will have the opportunity to specialize in health psychology interventions. Most treatment will be individual, however, group training and experience is available for issues such as DBT, and CBT for Social Phobia.

Consultation:
BMED interns provide consultations to medical patients hospitalized at MGH on an as-needed basis.

Research:
A successful applicant to the BMED track will have already demonstrated a commitment to clinical research as evidenced by an emerging history of completed research publications and/or presentations. To make the most of the clincial research training, an incoming intern would have their dissertation either nearly complete or complete before starting the internship. One of the main training objectives of the BMED track is to solidify the interns' background and skills necessary for a career in academic research. As part of our commitment to the scientist-practioner model, clinical research is a regular and protected part of CBT interns' weekly activities. Faculty from the psychiatry and medical departments offer a wealth of research opportunities including HIV, cancer, diabetes, cardiac care, and neurology. The faculty from the psychiatry department's programs also offer expertise in treatment and psychopathology research, including multiple ongoing investigatons of the nature and treatment anxiety and affective disorders. Interns should discuss their research interests with each of their supervisors and program directors, and may choose to initiate independent research projects or join existing projects (where full data sets become available during the intern's training year).

Faculty: click here for Behavioral Medicine Faculty and Behavioral Medicine

Didactics:

• Behavioral Medicine Seminar (weekly)
• CBT Seminar (weekly)
• Group Supervison and Case Conferences
  

Supervision

• 3 hours individual supervision - 1 hour research-focused, 1 hour BMED, 1 hour general CBT
• 1 hour BMED group supervision
• 1 hour Anxiety group supervision
• 1 hour Depression group supervision (optional)

Post-Doctoral Training Opportunities:
The internship year is the first step toward specialization in a behavioral medicine/health psychology clinical research area. To provide BMED track interns with advance training in clinical methods and clinical research, the research teams in BMED at MGH may offer Postdoctoral Fellowships in Clinical Research as it realtes to health. Interested interns are encouraged to organize their research activities such that they can make a smooth transition to a fellowship year if positions are available.

Links:

Behavioral Medicine
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy


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