Vanderbilt University Medical Center offers a one-year ACGME-accredited program with two fellowship positions available each year open to board-eligible psychiatrists.
During the 12 months of training, the fellows’ clinical work is centered within Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), which has over 1100 beds and provides tertiary and quaternary care for a referral base encompassing a large area of the Southeastern United States. The fellow will see an unparalleled variety of patients while working on the VUMC psychiatry team, which completes >7500 new consultations within the medical center yearly. The high level of medical acuity within VUMC patients allows us to train our fellows to recognize and treat primary psychiatric disorders, rare neuropsychiatric conditions, navigate complex ethical and medico-legal situations, and assist in management of emotional and behavioral symptoms across a broad clinical context. The fellows will be exposed to subspecialty psychiatric services on the Addiction Consultation Service, Transplant Psychiatry Service, and Emergency Psychiatry Service. Fellows also provide consultation services for the affiliated Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, giving access to patients during recovery from major orthopedic and traumatic brain injury.
Other clinical experiences include a longitudinal outpatient consultation-liaison clinic where fellows will develop outpatient consultation skills and work with providers in Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Neurology, Infectious Disease, and Endocrinology, among others. Given the large referral base for this service, fellows are encouraged and empowered to develop subspecialty interests within this clinic.
Teaching is an important part of training, and CLP fellows are an important part of the teaching mission of the team. There are a wide variety of trainees on the consultation service, including Vanderbilt University School of Medicine MS-II’s, sub-interns (MS-iii or IV’s) drawn from numerous American and international medical schools, VUMC Neurology Residents (PGY-2s), and psychiatry residents (PGY-2s). CLP fellows will participate in regular didactic fellows rounds, and will have graduated clinical teaching responsibilities as a junior attending on service. At the end of training, fellows will be more than prepared to transition into academic positions leading teams on their own. Fellows will have their own weekly supervision to aid in their educational, clinical, and professional development. The fellowship program values the unique interests of fellows and attempts to meet fellows' academic and clinical goals by helping leverage psychiatry's strong relationship with other departments into unique elective opportunities.
VUMC and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences offers opportunities to join ongoing research efforts and fellows with defined interests can be offered protected time to further their own interest. Areas of strength for the department include delirium, catatonia, first episode psychosis, neuroimaging, and quality improvement. Fellows with other interests are supported in finding appropriate mentorship and supervision outside of the department leveraging the broad academic infrastructure of VUMC.
Seminars/Rounds/Conferences
Weekly CL-focused Case Conferences and Journal Clubs
Weekly Educational Rounds
Weekly Psychiatry Grand Rounds
Geriatrics Conferences
Toxicology Conferences
Emergency Medicine didactics
Daily Neurology Seminars
Hospital-wide Discovery Lectures
Center for Bioethics Case Conferences
Core Clinical Experiences
Adult Inpatient Psychiatry Consults
Subspecialty Transplant Psychiatry Service
Subspecialty Addiction Consult Service
Emergency Psychiatry Service
Adult Inpatient Psychiatry Consults Junior Attending
Psychiatric Consultation Subspecialty Services
Educational Half Day (Seminar, Research, Teaching)
Existing Electives
Inpatient Subspecialty Services-Neuropsychiatry, Infectious Disease and HIV, Burn and Trauma
Surgery, Critical Care, Geriatric Medicine, Oncology
Inpatient & Outpatient Electroconvulsive Therapy (can obtain ECT certification
Addiction/Medication-Assisted Therapy (can obtain DEA waiver training)
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Consultation Service
Inpatient/Outpatient Toxicology
Outpatient Transplant Psychiatry
Outpatient Epilepsy Clinic
Outpatient Women's Health Clinic
Outpatient Integrative Health
Outpatient Huntington's Disease Clinic
Outpatient Palliative Care/Outpatient Hospice
Inpatient Palliative Care
Inpatient Pain Service
Inpatient Geriatrics/Outpatient Geriatrics
Forensic Examiner Training
Research Elective
Applicant Qualifications:
Completion of an ACGME-accredited residency program in psychiatry by start of fellowship
Passing score on the USMLE STEP 3 or COMLEX Level 3
Eligibility for medical licensure in the State of Tennessee
Application Process:
Applications are accepted between July 1st and November 15th (earlier applications preferred)
Interviews will take place from September through November
Positions are offered through the NRMP Match
Starting in 2024, our program will utilize ERAS for our recruitment.
Attn: Jacqualine Whittington
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
1601 23rd Avenue South, Suite 3105
Nashville, TN 37212
For additional questions regarding the application process for the fellowship, please contact:
Jacqualine Whittington, Psychiatry Program Manager
 | Jonathan D. Smith, MD Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Medical Director, Adult Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Director, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship |
