Purpose: This advanced training track emphasizes the delivery of behavioral health services within interdisciplinary medical teams using the Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) model. Interns work in dynamic outpatient clinics alongside attending physicians and resident physicians, providing high-impact, population-based care that bridges physical and mental health.
Primary referrals often focus on the behavioral management of chronic medical conditions, including diabetes, chronic pain, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune disorders. Interns provide health-focused interventions addressing treatment adherence, illness adjustment, lifestyle changes, and psychological symptoms that are secondary to or exacerbated by medical conditions (e.g., anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances).
Using the PCBH model, interns respond to same-day consult requests, conduct focused assessments, and provide brief, solution-oriented sessions (typically 20–30 minutes) that are patient-centered and seamlessly integrated into the flow of primary care. These brief interventions are the foundation of the track and are complemented by a range of other clinical activities based on intern interest and patient need.
Interns are also engaged in initial consultations, focused psychological testing, and risk management assessments. When appropriate, and aligned with the intern’s training goals, there is also the opportunity to provide more traditional, longer-term individual therapy for patients requiring sustained behavioral health support.
Psychological assessments include brief evaluations for cognitive concerns, neurodivergent presentations (e.g., ADHD, autism spectrum traits), and diagnostic clarification, with recommendations designed to support ongoing interdisciplinary care.
This track extends the required Integrated Health Psychology rotation by providing interns with an additional four-month placement, along with consistent training every Wednesday throughout the year. The extended structure allows interns to gain both breadth and depth in medical psychology while developing focused expertise in specific subdomains (e.g., sleep medicine, transplant, women’s health).
Treatment approaches are grounded in patient-centered care and evidence-based practice, with a primary focus on cognitive-behavioral interventions. Interns gain proficiency in brief and adapted forms of CBT, behavioral activation, and motivational interviewing. Training also includes development of skills in interdisciplinary collaboration, communication with medical teams, and foundational psychopharmacological literacy relevant to integrated care settings.
Settings:
At Medical College of Georgia:
Faculty:
Goals/Objectives of the Health Psych - Integrated Primary Care Track emphasis training: We expect that interns will develop specific skills and knowledge pertinent to their settings and to the medical conditions and psychological comorbidities being treated. In addition we expect that interns will develop general competencies important for success in most medical psychology settings. Below are the core competencies we promote. Please note that any reference to the patient below will likely include the patient’s family and significant others.
MCG Health Infectious Diseases – HIV/AIDS clinics: The MCG Health Infectious Diseases Clinic treats close to over 1200 HIV-positive individuals and is the recipient of Ryan White Title B and C funding that provides primary and ancillary medical services to indigent HIV-positive patients. The intern functions as part of a large interdisciplinary primary care team, training and practicing alongside physicians, physician assistants, nurses, case workers, treatment navigators, peer specialists, fellows, medical students, and social workers. In this setting, the intern will gain skills in consultation to physicians and patients, rapid assessment, crisis intervention, motivational interviewing and behavioral interventions. The Pediatric Infectious Disease Clinic provides similar services to the adult clinic, but on a smaller scale due to the small caseload in this clinic. The intern will also spend more time in consultation with parents and families of HIV-positive children and may also participate in the clinic support groups.
MCG Health Behavior Outpatient Clinic: Interns will have an opportunity to work within the department Health Behavior outpatient clinic as a part of an interdisciplinary team consisting of clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatry residents, and social work. Primary responsibilities will include intake evaluations for clients interested in pursuing psychotherapy and maintaining a case load of weekly psychotherapy clients. Interns will meet weekly with the interdisciplinary HB team to present cases, discuss medication and psychotherapy recommendations, and milieu treatment options.
MCG Health Child & Adolescent Consultation/Liaison Service: The Division of Child, Adolescent, and Family Psychiatry provides consultation and liaison services to the Children’s Hospital of Georgia and the MCG Pediatric Outpatient clinics. In this service, Interns have opportunities to provide consultations for inpatients and outpatients that include triage assessment for children/adolescents who have engaged in self-harm, differential diagnostic evaluation of children presenting with possible Somatic Symptom and related disorders, management of chronic illness and its associated challenges, and facilitative care in which support is provided for children and their families enduring medical trauma or diseases with poor prognoses.
MCG Health Cancer Center: The Division of Psycho-Oncology provides comprehensive psychiatric evaluation of medically ill (e.g., cancer or other illnesses) patients, throughout all phases of illness: initial diagnosis, during treatment, recurrence, chronic phases of illness, advanced cancer, end of life care, and during cancer survivorship at the Georgia Cancer Center. In this service, Interns have opportunities to provide: diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric syndromes associated with medical and surgical conditions (e.g., cancer or other illnesses) and the effects of these treatments; assessment and management of the major psychiatric disorders encountered in the medically ill/cancer patient including: Adjustment Disorders, Anxiety Disorders (e.g., Panic Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), Mood Disorders (e.g., Major Depression), Cognitive Impairment Disorders (e.g., Delirium), Psychotic Disorders, and Somatoform Disorders (e.g., Pain Disorder); assessment and management of psychiatric syndromes and psychosocial issues impacting families and caregivers of medically ill (cancer) patients, including issues related to palliative care and bereavement; and utilization of nonpharmacologic approaches in the management of psychiatric symptoms and syndromes in medically ill (cancer) patients, including specific knowledge of the use of individual psychotherapies (e.g., psychodynamic, supportive, interpersonal, existential, and spiritually oriented), cognitive-behavioral interventions (e.g., relaxation techniques, self-hypnosis, meditation), sleep improvement techniques, and bereavement counseling.