Program Overview

Program Overview

The Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is a part of Swedish Medical Group and began in 2020 with two fellows placed in SMG primary care clinics functioning as Fellow Behavioral Health Providers. The primary aim of the fellowship program is to prepare psychologists to function effectively in integrated primary care settings as behavioral health consultants. Recognizing that this is an emerging and rapidly developing area of practice, the program also provides psychologists with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to function in integrated care leadership roles. Integrated care leadership roles include expansion of behavioral health services to new clinics, expansion of services to include the mental health and wellbeing needs to the greater community (including enhancing relationships with community members and partners), and program development/implementation.

Didactics

Program didactics will aim to provide fellows with: 

  • Working knowledge of the foundational and current empirical evidence base that provides the rationale for behavioral integration services and informs strategies for their effective implementation.  

  • Knowledge of the evidence base regarding racial inequity and the imperative to promote and develop culturally diverse, equitable, and inclusive systems that: foster diverse multidisciplinary teams, decrease health disparities, and underscore how intersectionality affects patient care. 

  • Knowledge of the empirical basis and psychometric properties of assessment tools commonly utilized in primary care.   

  • Working knowledge of evidence-based integrated behavioral healthcare interventions across the full lifespan, with an emphasis on supporting children, youth, and families who have been impacted at proportionally higher rates throughout the course of the pandemic. 

  • Knowledge of consultation models that inform effective behavioral health consultation in integrated healthcare settings. 

Supervision

All fellows will receive individual and group supervision that: 

  • Provides clinical oversight of their direct service. 

  • Integrates didactic knowledge with the development of advanced service delivery, consultation, and leadership roles. 

  • Provides mentorship in the development of advanced service delivery, consultation, and leadership roles.  

Program Goals

  1. Achieve advanced competency as a clinical health service psychologist in integrated primary care settings  

  2. Develop the knowledge base and leadership skills to be positioned for a career moving population health forward

Competencies

  1. Demonstrate the foundational knowledge base and current evidence for effective implementation and provision of integrated behavioral health services in primary care.

  2. Deliver culturally informed and responsive integrated behavioral health services to a diverse patient population within a diverse multidisciplinary healthcare provider team. 

  3. Effective application of screening oriented assessment tools commonly utilized in primary care to guide the provision of integrated behavioral health services and facilitate population-based healthcare goals and initiatives. 

  4. Development of focused, concise consultation skills that are well suited for primary care and other medical settings.  

  5. Development of community partnerships that support expansion of access to evidence-based behavioral health information and/or support, ensuring that commitment to our community expands beyond those established with the Fellow’s primary care clinic. 

example weekly schedule

The overall duration of the program is 52 weeks with an average of 40 total program hours per week. It requires 12 months or one full calendar year to complete the program. The fellow will provide a minimum of thirty-two schedulable patient contact hours per week, with the remainder 0.2 FTE dedicated to supervision (individual and group), didactics, BHP clinical and operational team meetings, psychiatry consultation, community outreach, program development, research, and/or EPPP preparation.

Program includes both a Generalist & Pediatrics track

The Fellowship program includes a bi-weekly didactic time dedicated to Fellows (held on the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Wednesdays of the month). The format of the didactics combines lecture, guest presenters, case examples, group discussion, and team/relationship development. For the 2022-23 year, we have a pediatric emphasis and our didactic curricula will provide rotating lifespan and pediatric focused topics.

All Fellows will also participate in a monthly Diversity Seminar in collaboration with the Providence Oregon Psychology Postdoctoral training program in integrated behavioral health. These seminars will combine teachings from the Dialogues about Race training series (https://www.va.gov/northern-california-health-care/work-with-us/internships-and-fellowships/psychology-training-east-bay/), as well as guest presenters and journal discussion.

Accreditation

The fellowship abides by the APPIC Postdoctoral Selection Guidelines. Details of this process are available at the APPIC website (https://www.appic.org/About-APPIC/Postdoctoral). Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without an employer-sponsored visa.