Seattle Training Sites

University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC)

UWMC is a tertiary care hospital consistently rated among the best in the nation. Psychiatric services include inpatient, outpatient, and consultation-liaison services. Most Spokane Track residents spend three months rotating on the 20-bed inpatient unit and may fulfill one or two months of the required consultation-liaison experience at this facility.

On the inpatient unit, residents have an opportunity to learn general psychiatry, geropsychiatry, and medical psychiatry. Each resident spends approximately two weeks learning electroconvulsive therapy as part of the inpatient rotation. The consultation-liaison service provides both inpatient and outpatient consultation with a particular emphasis on somatization disorders and psychiatric aspects of tertiary care, especially oncology and transplantation medicine.

Harborview Medical Center (HMC)

HMC is a busy county hospital and regional Burn and Trauma Center, serving a largely indigent multicultural population. The medical center is run by the University of Washington. Harborview has three inpatient psychiatry units with a total of 63 beds and about 2000 admissions each year. The psychiatric units include a locked, intensive treatment unit for acutely psychotic, involuntary patients; a second locked unit for predominantly involuntary patients with psychotic and affective disorders; and an open unit with specialized programs for high utilizers (primarily patients with borderline personality disorder) and patients with co-existing disorders.

The HMC emergency department includes a self-contained Crisis Triage Unit and is the major psychiatric receiving facility in the region. Consultation-liaison services include evaluations of inpatients, with an emphasis on assessment of suicide risk and competency, as well as consultation to the HMC outpatient Adult Medicine, Family Medicine, Women's and International (Refugee) clinics.

Spokane Track residents generally have one three-month rotation on the inpatient adult psychiatric units and are able to spend 1-2 months on the busy consultation-liaison service. The Harborview CTU is the major training site for emergency psychiatry for all University of Washington residents.

Seattle Veteran's Affairs Medical Center

The Seattle VA is a part of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and is closely affiliated with the University of Washington School of Medicine. The Seattle VA has the third largest research budget in the entire VA health care system and is home to a variety of centers for excellence including three national research, education, and clinical centers which have a mental health focus. These include a GRECC (Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center), one of two national Centers of Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education (CESATE), and the VA Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Centers (MIREC), focusing on psychiatric genetics, PTSD and schizophrenia.

Spokane Track residents rotate through the inpatient psychiatry units for a three month period. Inpatient services include a 24-bed High Intensity Acute Unit and a 16-bed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Unit. The VA also has busy emergency and consultation-liaison services.

Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center (CHRMC)

CHRMC is a 200-bed regional pediatric tertiary care facility. The Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has a commitment to provide services for and conduct research in populations of under-served, acutely ill children and adolescents. Children's hospital has a 15-bed inpatient and a 10-bed partial hospitalization unit. Spokane residents may choose to rotate on these units to fulfill all or part of their Child and Adolescent Psychiatry requirement.