Although there is a wide variety of training experience available within the Consortium, any single intern’s experience will be limited to a few sites that are congruent with the intern’s training objectives.  On selection day, applicants are accepted into a particular primary placement in one of the agencies described in the next section.  Each Consortium intern devotes three and one half days per week to clinical training and supervision at this primary placement.  It is, therefore, very important to review carefully the descriptions of the Consortium agencies to decide which agency/agencies you would consider for potential primary placement based on your training interests, and to indicate these on the Consortium Supplemental Information Form available through this web-site.

Each intern will spend one day a week at a secondary placement, which must be at a site different from the primary placement.  Selection of a secondary placement takes place after the beginning of the internship year and plays no role in acceptance decisions.  Prior to secondary placement selection interns are oriented to all of the Consortium agencies and available training experiences.  Final assignment of a secondary placement takes into account the intern’s expressed preferences, faculty and intern evaluation of the intern’s training needs, and the availability of particular experiences and supervision.  In order to diversify some interns have negotiated to have one secondary placement for the first six months of the year, and a different secondary placement for the last six months.   Such an arrangement would require the agreement in advance of all parties involved.  Most secondary placement activities have been scheduled on the same day of the week, currently Thursday, so that interns working at secondary sites can use the offices of primary interns, who are themselves away at their own secondary sites.  

All Consortium interns attend regularly scheduled case conferences and didactic seminars that are organized as part of the internship experience.  These mandatory consortium-wide training activities occupy approximately one half day each week, currently Friday mornings. In addition to the presentation of clinically or professionally relevant content, a major objective of these Consortium-wide training activities is to provide a structure within which members of the intern class may interact and learn from one another.  Click here to view Seminar Schedules for last year’s (2008-2009) training activities..  There is also an abundance of conferences, colloquia, workshops, and research opportunities open to interns in the Consortium settings, in the larger university community, and the Nashville area.  Participation in some of these activities can be arranged through negotiation with your training site, and will serve to enrich the internship year and provide a setting for valuable interaction with other professionals.

The following examples may help to illustrate some of the possible ways in which interns’ time could be distributed.  Intern A, with a primary placement at the Psychological and Counseling Center and a secondary placement at Adult Psychiatry might spend all day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon at the Counseling Center (PCC), Thursday at Adult Psychiatry (AP), and Friday morning in Consortium Training activities.  Intern B, with a primary placement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (C&A) and a secondary placement at the Nashville VA would spend all day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon at Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Thursday at the Nashville VA and Friday morning in Consortium training activities. 

Click here to view Seminar Schedules for last year’s (2008-2009) training activities.

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