Clinical & Pediatric Psychology Doctoral Internship Program Rotations

Outpatient Therapy Services

Outpatient services are housed in Norton Children's Behavioral and Mental Health Bingham Clinic, where interns and supervising faculty have their offices. Operating since 1913, the Bingham Clinic is one of the oldest child and adolescent mental health clinics in the country. It is located in a family-friendly facility on the second level of Norton Hospital, a major health care facility in the region. 

Interns provide intake evaluations and individual and family psychotherapy for a diverse population of children, adolescents, and families throughout the training year. Patients range in age from 4 to 18 years-old and present with a wide variety of emotional, behavioral, and medical concerns. Interns are primarily responsible for coordinating their patient caseloads with faculty supervision and have flexibility in requesting cases of particular interest to them or to maintain continuity of care across services (e.g., following a child from inpatient to outpatient care, or from diagnostic assessment to treatment). 

Psychological Assessment 

As an intern, you will complete comprehensive psychological assessments at the Bingham Clinic for patients referred primarily by other clinic providers, including attention deficits, cognitive functioning, learning profile, and social/emotional and behavioral functioning. Other evaluations may include pre-transplant evaluations or neurocognitive evaluations. Assessments are geared to be comprehensive and aid in treatment planning, diagnostic clarification, and psychotherapeutic and medication management.

Emergency Department

The Bingham Clinic provides emergency psychiatric consultations for the Norton Children's Hospital alongside the emergency department team. Psychology interns and psychiatry fellows rotate in-house coverage of this service alternating as the primary evaluator. Daytime on-call is expected, but no overnights nor weekends are required.

Children's Health & Illness Recovery Program (CHIRP)

CHIRP is a 12-session manualized cognitive behavioral and family systems intervention for adolescents with chronic illness, particularly conditions that involve chronic pain, fatigue, and functional disability. Developed by the University of Louisville School of Medicine, it is an important service provided to families. Referrals often include adolescents struggling with conditions such as hypermobility, fibromyalgia, POTS, chronic headaches, JIA, and functional abdominal pain. CHIRP is currently delivered through individual therapy, although groups may be available at times.

Individual and Cultural Diversity

Our outpatient clinics and inpatient services serve a diverse range of youth and families. We also dedicate seminar time to topics of health equity and community engagement. We are dedicated to providing a supportive and inclusive learning environment for all trainees.

Pediatric Consultation-Liaison Service

Interns work with an interprofessional team of psychology and psychiatry faculty and learners to provide consultations for children and adolescents receiving inpatient medical treatment at Norton Children's Hospital. Consultations most often involve children with:

• behavioral and emotional difficulties associated with acute or chronic physical illness or injury 
• psychophysiological disorders 
• adjustment disorders 
• treatment noncompliance 
• behaviorally acting out; and 
• suicidal behavior.

Interventions are varied but include behavior management, support/guidance to parents and nursing staff, patient coping skills enhancement and anxiety reduction, and short-term supportive therapy. 

During rotations, interns will gain consulting experience with primary care and specialty care physicians and other health care providers. Involvement with a variety of services is part of the rotation resulting in exposure to a range of medical presentations. Regularly scheduled rounds are conducted on this service, as well as individual supervision of all cases seen.

Pediatric Specialty Care 

Our interns spend from 2 to 2 ½ days per week providing behavioral health services to children, adolescents, and families in various specialty care clinics with Norton Children's Medical Group. Such clinics may include Pediatric Cardiology/Pediatric Nephrology solid organ transplant services, Pediatric Endocrinology (Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute), and Pediatric Gastroenterology, as well as others as available. 

Service provision follows a collaborative care model and includes work on multidisciplinary teams. Interns help screen for concerns with adherence, coping with chronic illness, behavioral/mental health concerns, provide brief problem-focused interventions, and make referrals for more extensive mental health services as needed. 

Child and Adolescent Acute Inpatient Psychiatry

The Ackerly Inpatient Psychiatric Service serves as a short-term, inpatient facility for children and adolescents experiencing acute psychiatric disturbance. Youth with a full range of psychiatric diagnoses and problems are treated on this unit. Admission is typically precipitated by patient symptoms of psychosis, suicidality, or dangerous aggression towards others. As part of treatment, patients are involved daily in group, individual, and art therapy, along with educational instruction. Family therapy is generally conducted 1 to 2 times weekly by the unit social worker. 

As an intern, you are an integral member of the interprofessional treatment team that includes a child psychiatrist (unit director), psychiatry fellows and residents, social workers, nursing staff, and expressive therapist. Interns are responsible for carrying the role of primary therapist for two to three patients at any given time during the rotation period, conducting individual psychotherapy sessions (approximately three a week per patient) and participating in unit rounds daily as well as leading a weekly DBT based skills group for adolescent patients