Integrated Primary Care / Mental Health Rotation

Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System offers a psychology internship training program with a three-month training rotation at the Integrated Primary Care Mental Health Clinic. Interns wishing to pursue training in integrated care as part of their year-long pre-doctoral internship training program may select this rotation. 

The Integrated Primary Care/Mental Health rotation offers interns the opportunity to work as embedded practitioners in outpatient primary care clinics. During this rotation, interns serve as first points of contact for veterans newly expressing mental health concerns and/or seeking mental health services.

An integral component of this position is collaborating with physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants, dieticians, and clinical pharmacists to ensure that a holistic approach is taken in treating each veteran. Interns also have the opportunity to gain experience in lethality assessment and crisis intervention.

This area of service is rapidly growing within the Veterans Affairs system, as the standard of care increasingly involves a team approach to treatment with the goal of providing all of the veteran's healthcare needs under one roof. During this rotation, interns hone their skills in clinical interviewing, diagnosis, and triage in addition to providing short-term, solution-focused treatment (four to six sessions) and addressing issues incorporating both mental health and behavioral health components. As with the Mental Health Outreach Clinic, the Integrated Primary Care/Mental Health Clinic accepts referrals from most other services and is the first point of contact for the Emergency Department.

Goals for this rotation include:

1. acquire skills necessary to function as a professional member of an interdisciplinary primary care treatment team, such as mental health triage, crisis response, and interdisciplinary and across-clinic treatment planning and implementation
2. acquire advanced skills in providing supportive individual psychotherapy to veterans being treated in primary care
3. acquire skills and knowledge necessary to function in the role of patient education resource related to disease process.