Psychiatry Residencies with the most technology/futuristic outlook

[Joe Singer]

US only...Are there any residencies that teach residents/give them the opportunity to use things like VR, neurofeedback therapy, and just have a general futuristic outlook on psychiatry? I am very interested in implementing future tech into my later career, so I would like a residency that would be able to most prepare me for that. Are there any like this in the US??

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[dl2dp2]

I’d say most top academic programs this is a large part of the research agenda. Match as well as you can and if you are not a tier 1 applicant then hopefully a tier 2 program preferably close to a tech hub.

 

[Ludwig2000]

I don’t know about VR or neurofeedback specifically, but two that come to mind as “future-oriented” based on brain stimulation and other interventional approaches would be Mt. Sinai and MUSC. This is just my impression as an M4 getting ready to apply, based on what I’ve seen/heard from others.

 

[splik]

stanford has a VR program.

regardless, unless you are a researcher, it would be extremely short sighted and foolish to choose a program based on how "futuristic" (sic) it is. No one knows what the practice of psychiatry is going to look like in 30 or 40 yrs time, but I can tell you it is unlikely to change substantially in the next 10 years. The fundamentals of psychiatry will always be the same (unless it morphs into an entirely different field). Thus it is much better to think of how well the program will prepare you in general for practice. As physicians, we have to be able to adapt and keep abreast of new developments. It is not realistic for a program to train you something that doesn't exist yet. What you are asking about would be a 3rd or 4th yr elective type thing at best. I would be seriously concerned if any residency program was heavily oriented towards neurofeedback, which right now for most indications is just quackery. If your program can teach you how to talk to patients, critically appraise the literature, practice ethically, formulate patient's problems from multiple perspectives, recognize when a psychiatric presentation signals an underlying neuromedical disorder, understand the sociocultural context of mental wellbeing, and the medicolegal dimensions of care you will have a pretty solid foundation for anything.

on the other hand, if you are interested in research and studying and developing new technological interventions then you should definitely consider what kinds of programs are available to study these (since it is investigational, it is not going to be a significant part of your clinical training). Also important to separate the legitimate from the pseudoscience. VR definitely has emerging uses in psychotherapy for a range of conditions. neurofeedback is mostly quackery.

 

[Sushirolls]

stanford has a VR program.

regardless, unless you are a researcher, it would be extremely short sighted and foolish to choose a program based on how "futuristic" (sic) it is. No one knows what the practice of psychiatry is going to look like in 30 or 40 yrs time, but I can tell you it is unlikely to change substantially in the next 10 years. The fundamentals of psychiatry will always be the same (unless it morphs into an entirely different field). Thus it is much better to think of how well the program will prepare you in general for practice. As physicians, we have to be able to adapt and keep abreast of new developments. It is not realistic for a program to train you something that doesn't exist yet. What you are asking about would be a 3rd or 4th yr elective type thing at best. I would be seriously concerned if any residency program was heavily oriented towards neurofeedback, which right now for most indications is just quackery. If your program can teach you how to talk to patients, critically appraise the literature, practice ethically, formulate patient's problems from multiple perspectives, recognize when a psychiatric presentation signals an underlying neuromedical disorder, understand the sociocultural context of mental wellbeing, and the medicolegal dimensions of care you will have a pretty solid foundation for anything.

on the other hand, if you are interested in research and studying and developing new technological interventions then you should definitely consider what kinds of programs are available to study these (since it is investigational, it is not going to be a significant part of your clinical training). Also important to separate the legitimate from the pseudoscience. VR definitely has emerging uses in psychotherapy for a range of conditions. neurofeedback is mostly quackery.

Yep, what splik said.
Neurofeedback has its place, but is not a panacea.
VR already exists, in the form of hypnotherapy. More powerful than VR is the imagery of our own mind and subconcious, as there you tap into the visceral 'the feeling' of the experience. The 'glitches' of the imagery conjured up during hypnotherapy is forgiven by the mind, but the glitches of VR can run the whole session. I suspect until we have holosuites on par with Star Trek {LLAP}, hypnotherapy will continue to be the superior intervention. Hypnotherapy has the benefits of doing age regressions, age progressions, etc.

 

[SourceOfDenial]

VR, aka expensive prolonged exposure. I’d imagine similarly high drop out rates too.

 

[dl2dp2]

No one knows what the practice of psychiatry is going to look like in 30 or 40 yrs time, but I can tell you it is unlikely to change substantially in the next 10 years. T

I'm not sure about this.

Did you listen to that podcast The Shrink Next Door? I have a vague feeling that psychiatry in the 1980s and 90s were VERY different in practice compared to psychiatry in the 2000s, so much so that I have very little trust in any psychiatrist in their 60s except academics in psychopharmacology.

 

[Espadaleader]

Programs in the northeast are focusing in on machine learning, natural language processing some cool stuff. Psych is an innovative field.

 

[EarlyCareerAcademicPsych]

I'm not sure about this.

Did you listen to that podcast The Shrink Next Door? I have a vague feeling that psychiatry in the 1980s and 90s were VERY different in practice compared to psychiatry in the 2000s, so much so that I have very little trust in any psychiatrist in their 60s except academics in psychopharmacology.

This is fascinating! I have more trust - relationally - in clinicians who were trained in the 190s and 1990s that they will be able to build a working relationship with difficult patients and help the patients stay in treatment. However, I have the unempirical opinion that there are more outliers from that time - most clinicians who did things very differently from their peers. This is a validity vs. reliability distinction involved here, I think, in that clinicians trained in the 2000s-present tend to observe, think and describe in a more uniform way (increased inter-rater reliability) but might not always get at the heart of the issue, what is most important for the patient to work on.

Again - this is just my take based on a limited set of interactions that I have had. I listened to "The Shrink Next Door" and I was horrified. Unchecked physician autonomy seemed to play a large role in what happened there ...

 

[FlowRate]

If you want a broader set of tech opportunities, Stanford is the obvious choice.

 

[rikudo]

As an owner of a current high-end VR headset, they have a loooong way to go. Headsets are bulky, uncomfortable and hot. The field of view is a fraction of normal eyesight. Resolution is still pixelated, the contrast is poor, the refresh rate is low and the optics cannot compensate for close/far adjustment, need inserts for Rx lenses and many don't have interpupillary adjustment. They are fun for games and a cool novelty but I imagine therapeutic use is 10+ years away.