General Psychiatry Residency Training Sites

The Harris Health System provides care to Houston and Harris County residents regardless of insurance or financial status. The system encompasses multiple hospitals and a large number of community clinics. Ben Taub Hospital is the flagship and home base for much of our psychiatry training in this system. Ben Taub is a Level 1 trauma center with a dedicated psychiatric emergency room and 20 bed inpatient psychiatry unit split between two teams.

For residents, this is an excellent exposure to community health care. In the first year, residents will spend time in the emergency room, on both psychiatry teams on the inpatient unit, and during “off-service” months with neurology, emergency medicine, and a “same day” family medicine clinic. In second year, residents return to spend time in the emergency room on night float, on the inpatient unit as an upper-level resident, and on the consultation/liaison service. This is also the site for second year call coverage.

During the outpatient third year, residents have access to a wide variety of clinics across the city. These include a general adult psychiatry, child psychiatry, addictions and perinatal addiction, geriatric psychiatry, movement disorders, clozapine clinic, post-Covid clinic, ECT, Alliance Clinic for International Trauma Survivors, Thomas Street HIV Clinic, an OB-psychiatry clinic, and an intensive outpatient program.

As fourth years, residents will have chief roles on services such as the C/L service and in the ER. Residents also have the opportunity to do internal moonlighting at Ben Taub Hospital.

The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center is one of the largest VA hospitals in the United States, one of our core training affiliates, and supports many of our resident stipends. It is a central hub for significant research and clinical interests across the region and a hub for many other VA systems.

Residents will rotate at the VA in each year of their training. During the first year, residents will spend time rotating in places like the inpatient adult, addiction, and geriatric psychiatry units and the psychiatry consult service as well as on non-psychiatry rotations such as on internal medicine wards, endocrinology, and neurology rotations. This is also the location that interns cover on call. In the second year, residents will spend time at the VA in the emergency room and with the veteran’s justice program as part of their forensic rotation.

There are also a number of electives available for residents including an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team, research month, or an ECT elective. In the third year, residents will have a selection of VA outpatient clinics including general mental health clinic (GMHC), a substance dependence treatment program (SDTP), post-deployment clinic, geriatric psychiatry clinic, psychosis clinic, primary care mental health (integrated care), a women’s mental heath integrated clinic, PTSD recovery, and neuropsychiatry.

Finally, in the fourth-year residents will have the opportunity to return to the VA for chief roles on some services as well as for electives like neuromodulation, transplant psychiatry, PTSD, health care for homeless veterans (HCHV), research, or ACT team.

Houston Methodist Hospital is consistently listed among U.S. News & World Report’s best hospitals (#1 in Texas and #15 in the nation recently) and is highly valued by our residents as an example of what working in a system similar to private community hospitals. Houston Methodist Hospital is where Dr. Michael E. DeBakey performed the first coronary artery bypass surgery in Texas and pioneered the field. Psychiatry residents will have the opportunity to rotate on the inpatient and consult teams in the second year and assist with weekend call coverage in the third year. While on the consult service, residents will assist with ECT done at the hospital.

Texas Children’s Hospital is one of the premier pediatric hospitals in the nation. U.S. News & World Report ranked it #2 in the nation for 2022-2023 and this is only a continuation of the fantastic care that TCH provides. In addition to its excellent pediatric care, Texas Children's has been growing as a women’s hospital as well with the expansion of the Pavilion For Women. While Texas Children's has several campuses across the city, psychiatry residents work at the main hub in the Texas Medical Center alongside our child and adolescent fellows.

During the first year, residents will have the option of doing their inpatient medicine month on the pediatric wards and an elective medicine month of developmental pediatrics, an integrated care clinic working with children with developmental disorders. In second year, residents will return to Texas Children's to work on the consultation-liaison service, or an elective outpatient rotation focused on family and individual therapy interventions.

In the outpatient year, residents will have access to a child psychiatry clinic at Texas Children's, a specialty autism clinic, and a Women’s Mental Health Clinic focused on perinatal care at the Pavilion for Women. Fourth year residents will also have the ability to spend time at the Women’s Mental Health Clinic for additional time.

The Menninger Clinic is a world-renowned psychiatric hospital that was located in Topeka, Kansas since its founding in 1925 prior to partnering with Baylor College of Medicine psychiatry department to form The Menninger Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and its move to Houston in 2003. It has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report for 31 consecutive years as a leader in psychiatry.

One of the unique aspects about treatment at the Menninger Clinic is it's longitudinal approach to treatment focused on a biopsychosocial team based approach combining therapy with pharmacologic and interventional treatments. Most patients are admitted for 6-8 weeks with shorter stays on the comprehensive assessment unit. Units at Menninger are comprised of the Comprehensive Psychiatric Assessment Service (CPAS), Hope (General Adult) Program, Professionals Program, Compass (Young adult) Program, and an Adolescent Treatment Program (CAP – 12-17 year old’s).

In addition to their inpatient services, Menninger has a growing outpatient service, including a private ACT intensive outpatient team, and subspecialty services such as neuropsychiatry, eating disorders, addictions, and sleep medicine. Residents in their second and fourth years will spend time rotating on at least one of the units at Menninger and/or the Menninger 360 outpatient ACT team for 2+ months at a time. Residents also have the opportunity to do internal moonlighting at Menninger.

Unfortunately, many persons with mental health problems also end up involved with the criminal justice system. Because of this entanglement, the Harris County Jail is one of the largest psychiatric providers in Houston and Harris County. Residents will spend half their time on their forensics rotation at the Harris County Jail being exposed to correctional mental health.

The jail has a number of different units and teams and residents will spend the first half of the month rotating with clinicians across these areas. In the final two weeks, they will have the option to decide what units they would like to spend additional time on. Inmates have a large spectrum and severity of illnesses and will be across the spectrum of stages in the legal process from intake through prolonged treatment for specialty needs like competency restoration or acute ‘inpatient’ level treatment.

The Baylor Psychiatry Clinic is the department’s own outpatient psychiatry clinic. It is located on the same floor as the administrative offices. It most closely resembles a private psychiatry practice, albeit one that accepts many insurances. Many residents find this an invaluable training site as the patient population and exposure to the business of medicine side most closely resembles what many post-graduation jobs or practices resemble.

Residents start doing psychotherapy at BPC in their PGYII year with a half day assigned to the clinic for therapy and this continues into the third and fourth year for most residents. Also in the third year, nearly all residents will have a medication management clinic treating adults at BPC. As a fourth year, there is a clinic chief resident rotation that combines clinical and administrative/QI roles. While the patient population spans across the mental illness spectrum, there is a particular focus on several areas including treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and OCD. Residents have an elective at BPC to do specialty work with the OCD team and the option to do deep brain stimulation (DBS) evaluations with our department chair, Dr. Wayne Goodman.

Legacy Community Health is a Federally Qualified Health Center focused on treating the unmet needs of the Houston community and out towards the border with Louisiana. It originally started in 1978 as The Montrose Clinic, focused on screening, diagnosis, and treatment of sexually transmitted disease primarily for gay men before expanding into HIV/AIDS treatment through the AIDS crisis. In 2005, through a merger with The Assistance Fund, The Montrose Clinic became Legacy Community Health. Over the years it has expanded to provide medical, psychiatric, and dental to all persons with particular focus on the underserved LGBTQ+ community. Residents have the option to spend part of their outpatient time in the third year of residency at Legacy and we are working to grow this collaboration further over time.

Since 1957, The Women’s Home has worked to support homeless women and families for mental health/addiction problems along with housing stability. Staff at The Women’s Home work to treat mental health problems as well as life skills training like financial, vocational, and social wellness. They have a residential treatment program, affordable housing, and wrap around wellness services. Residents are able to spend a half-day per week in their third year working at The Women’s Home as part of their outpatient year.

The Covenant House has been operating since 1972 and has helped over 1.5 million young people affected by homelessness and trafficking. The organization has locations in 34 cities across six countries and supports over 2,000 youth with housing each night. Many of these youth are also from marginalized communities be it racial/ethnic minorities, low SES households, LGBTQ+, or those who did not finish high school or equivalent education. Covenant House focuses on stabilization of unmet needs via housing, food, safety, and medical and psychiatric services. For our residents, this is another service where residents can spend a half-day during their outpatient PGYIII year.

The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities) is the largest local mental health authority in Texas and provides an extensive set of clinical services across the continuum of care including outpatient services, crisis intervention, and interfacing with the criminal justice system.

The Harris Center is our residency program’s newest affiliate where PGYIII residents have the option to rotate with The Harris Center in a more dedicated community psychiatry model with potential options for elective work. As a PGYIV, there is the option to return to the Harris Center as a dedicated chief resident rotation focusing on care across the service lines. As part of the time spent at The Harris Center, the faculty and staff there have devised seminars focusing on psychiatry in the public sector.