Samaritan Health Services Psychology Internship 2020-2021 Academic Year 2 Table of Contents Accreditation/Membership status .7 Profession-Wide Competencies: .7 Program-Specific Competencies.8 Psychology Internship Program Structure .8 Training Experiences – East Linn County. 10 Training Experiences – Albany and Corvallis. 11 Training Experiences – Coastal Clinics. 16 Sample Training Plan.
29 Supervision and Evaluations. 32 faculty and staff Profiles. 36 Expectations for Successful Completion. 44 Recruitment and Selection of Interns.
48 Operations of the Training Committee. 51 Sub Committees of the Training Committee. 52 Internship Admissions, Support, and Initial Placement Data. 57 Appendix A – SUPERVISION Policies.
60 Appendix B – DUE Process And Appeals Procedures. 64 Appendix C – SELECTION and Academic Preparation Requirements Policy. 70 Appendix D – EQUAL Employment Opportunity. 74 Appendix E – HARASSMENT Free Workplace.
76 Appendix F – DIVERSITY and Non-Discrimination Policy. 80 Appendix G – Wages, Benefits, and Resources Policy. 82 Appendix H – EVALUATION, Retention, and Termination Policy. 84 Appendix I – GRIEVANCE Procedures.
86 Appendix J – COMMUNICATION of Leave Policy. 89 Appendix K – SPECIAL Review Process. 91 Appendix L: CRITICAL Patient Incident Policy. 94 SHSPI Acknowledgement of Handbook, Protocols, & Policies.
100 4 ACCREDITATION/MEMBERSHIP STATUS Samaritan Health Services Psychology Internship Program is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) effective April 24, 2020. The next program site visit is to be held 2023. Questions related to the program's accreditation status should be directed to the Commission on Accreditation: Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation American Psychological Association 750 1st St NE, Washington DC, 20002 Telephone: (202) 336-5979 Samaritan Health Services Psychology Internship Program is a member of APPIC and participates in the APPIC Match. This internship site agrees to abide by the APPIC policy that no person at this training facility will solicit, accept, or use any ranking-related information from any intern applicant.
5 INTRODUCTION Samaritan Health Services (SHS) is a network of hospitals, clinics, and health services located throughout the beautiful Willamette Valley and central coast region of Oregon. The network began in 1997 with two hospitals joining to serve the Mid- Willamette Valley and has grown to five hospitals, 70 physician clinics, a senior care facility and several healthcare plans all with the goal of “building healthier communities together”. The SHS internship year allows students the opportunity to use and further develop clinical and research skills in a variety of settings and with different populations. The goal of the internship is to ensure the development of proficiency across the basic areas of clinical, health, and neuropsychology including assessment, therapy, consultation, and research.
The focus is on generalized training in preparation for a formal post-doctoral residency program. This is accomplished in three different primary and secondary settings. These settings range from rural health care on the Central Oregon Coast to more urban settings in the Mid- Valley. Although each clinic setting is unique and has its own specialized opportunities, each rotation is in a primary care clinic where interns work as part of a multidisciplinary team with a focus on integrated behavioral health care rather than a co-located model.
In health psychology settings, interns work with patients referred from physicians and advanced practitioners who have a health concern that is being impacted by a behavioral health condition. As part of the integrated health care model, interns work with referred patients on a short- term basis to target behavioral health habits and concerns, helping patients to develop a healthier lifestyle and more effective coping skills. In neuropsychology settings, interns work with patients across the lifespan in answering consultations regarding differential diagnosis, monitoring of cognitive status, and return to 6 various activities (e., work, play, etc. Interns also consult with and make recommendations to medical personnel to ensure patients are receiving optimal health care.
In addition to individual therapy and assessment, interns have the opportunity to lead and co-lead a variety of behavioral health groups such as smoking cessation, pain management, and weight loss support. Each clinic is unique and located in a distinctive geographic location in Oregon, which allows students a variety of patient populations with which to work. The coastal region is more rural and allows students the opportunity to work with a culturally diverse population of adult and adolescent patients, many of whom have typically been underserved. This area has a high incidence of patients with drug and alcohol addictions, as well.
The Mid-Valley regions are also culturally diverse and tend to be more broadly represented on the socio- economic spectrum. Students are required to travel to and from these sites, thus it is advisable that students have their own transportation. Travel times between sites vary from 30 minutes to 2 hours at the most, depending on clinic rotations. A map is provided for your convenience.
MISSION STATEMENT Equip the psychologists of tomorrow by providing ethical, comprehensive, integrated and innovative training in the field of health psychology and neuropsychology. 7 TRAINING PHILOSOPHY Samaritan Health Services is dedicated to educating and training upcoming practitioners in psychology. As the national healthcare model adapts, it is appropriate and important for psychologists to be skilled in collaborating with other healthcare professionals in order to best serve the public. Such proficiency requires being well-informed about the interplay between physical and psychological health, driving use of the biopsychosocial model.
Similarly, as psychologists merge into medical primary care clinics, generalist training is key in effectively providing primary psychological care. Thus, the Samaritan internship program espouses a generalist training model; this includes traditional mental health services, health psychology, and neuropsychology as the most salient areas of training for primary care. Effective psychologists must also have skill in reviewing literature and research as well as clinical skills. To achieve this goal, our training program adheres to a practitioner/scholar model.
Interns learn how to responsibly consume evidence- based research as well as how to consult with patients and physicians. Profession-Wide Competencies: Internship training focuses primarily on meeting the profession wide competencies laid out by the APA Standards of Accreditation (SoA). Generally, these competencies cover the intern performance in: direct patient services, ethical practice, utilization of research, interpersonal and professional presentation, provision and receipt of supervision, and interprofessional functioning within a wide population and a variety of clinical presentations. At the outset of clinical rotations, interns and supervisors meet to discuss and develop objectives for training based on individualized needs and interests, in relation to the SoA competencies.
The nine specific competencies consist of: • Research • Ethical and legal standards • Individual and cultural diversity • Professional values, attitudes, and behaviors • Communication and interpersonal skills • Assessment • Intervention • Supervision 8 • Consultation and interprofessional/interdisciplinary skills Program-Specific Competencies In addition to the foundation of clinical proficiency structured by the SoA, an important part of internship training involves program or organization specific competencies, which includes goals of leadership and organizational navigation, and patient advocacy and empowerment. These program specific competencies are referred to as: • Management • Advocacy PSYCHOLOGY INTERNSHIP PROGRAM STRUCTURE The Samaritan Health Services psychology doctoral internship program contains two different tracks, the Medical/Health Psychology track and the Neuropsychology track. Tracks consist of three different rotations and each rotation consists of a “Major” area of emphasis (24-32 hours per week) and “Minor” area of emphasis (8 hours per week maximum; optional). The other 8 hours of the training week are divided amongst didactics, research activity, class socialization, and administration activities.
Interns work with the training committee to develop their training plan for the year at the outset of internship. Please refer to the “training experiences” section at the conclusion of this section for a listing of all the different rotations available. These rotations are subject to change based on staff availability. A sample training plan for the year is also provided.
According to APPIC, the results of Match are binding, including your assigned track. In the Medical/Health Psychology track, at least two of the three major rotations during the training year consist of experiences emphasizing integration of mental and behavioral health services within primary care. These are primary care placements, with the intern operating as a part of an integrated care team. While the overall goal of this track is to provide experience within a Behavioral Health Consultant model of care, there is some variation in implementation that is based on supervisor style/practice, population being served, and specific clinic needs and set up.
Typically, a caseload will include each of: patients with a primary mental health diagnosis, patients with a primary medical diagnosis or condition, and a high level of comorbidity of both mental and behavioral health conditions. 9 The Medical/Health Psychology track is devoted to training clinical health psychologists capable of functioning as scientific investigators and as practitioners, consistent with the highest standards of clinical health psychology. This is in line with APA Division 38 language for advancing the role and contribution of the field in the understanding and treatment of health and illness, through a lens of integration. Additionally, the standards of accreditation for health service psychology (HSP) identify several common elements to training in this area, which are guiding principles for this track and internship program as a whole: 1) integration of empirical evidence and practice, 2) progressive training, providing a graded and ultimately cumulative or comprehensive experience for the provision of services, 3) engagement in actions and practices demonstrating respect and understanding for cultural and individual differences and diversity.
Trainees enrolled in this track have the option to include available specialty health clinics as minor rotations through the year, and/or complete a more assessment-based minor with neuropsychology or bariatrics. The minor is equivalent to 1 day a week. Intern preference for rotations is of course taken into consideration when designing a training plan in collaboration with the Training Committee. The training plan is meant to meet the training needs of the interns by providing opportunities to develop skills needed for taking the next professional step into residency and/or as an entry level psychologist.
Not all preferences can be accommodated through the training year, due to unforeseen changes that can occur within the program and/or organization as a whole. The Neuropsychology track consists of two blocks (two 4-month rotations) conducting neuropsychological evaluations within an outpatient neuropsychology clinic and a sports medicine clinic. These major rotations can be either 4 days a week (with no additional minor rotation) or 3 days a week (with a different minor rotation). Minor rotations typically include experiences in a health psychology site.
However, a minor rotation is also offered in primary care neuropsychology with an adult focus and a minor or major rotation is offered in pediatric neuropsychology. Neuropsychology track interns with less intervention experience may be encouraged by the training committee to consider a minor rotation in a primary care health psychology rotation during block one or two to prepare for the third block in the training year. The third block includes a major rotation within a health psychology site focusing on medical/health psychology and psychotherapeutic 10 interventions with a minor in neuropsychology for continuity of training. The rationale for this relates directly back to the generalist training espoused by the training program.
Neuropsychology track interns are not expected to have the same level of expertise in health psychology as their health track counterparts; however, it is emphasized that more intensive exposure will lead to a better understanding of health-based interventions ultimately resulting in improved patient care. Specifically, goals include: 1) Increased knowledge base for psychological disorders, 2) Engagement in health-related assessment (e., pain, sleep, bariatrics, etc.