Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship
Creighton University School of Medicine – Phoenix’s fellowship program in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is ready to welcome you to the desert southwest.
This two-year fellowship program is considered Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Currently, our program recruits for 4 positions each year.
Our Philosophy
Our fellowship is committed to developing future child psychiatrists who are knowledgeable, empathic and able to provide leadership in the care of diverse children. At Valleywise Behavioral Health Center – Mesa fellows are part of the treatment team on an innovative inpatient adolescent unit based on a Collaborative and Proactive Solutions model developed by Dr. Ross Greene. Fellows also staff the Valleywise Behavioral Health Center – Mesa Outpatient Clinic, providing comprehensive assessment and psychiatric care including medication, psychotherapy and parent guidance for children and families in need. While providing services in the community, fellows have access to a variety of unique training experiences with specialized populations throughout the Valley, including rotations focused on child maltreatment, children birth to five and school consultation with Native American children.
While offering diverse training opportunities, we pride ourselves on providing fellows with a warm, supportive, family-friendly environment where they can acquire current and critical knowledge and develop professionally as psychiatrists. With four fellows a year, our program is able to be very responsive to individual fellows’ needs and interests. Fellows routinely create electives based on special interests.
Our mission is to develop child psychiatrists who have the knowledge and clinical skills to optimally treat diverse and seriously mentally ill children and their families, and the interpersonal skills and compassion to engage those children and their families as active participants in their care, development, and well-being.
Our program's mission aligns with the mission of Valleywise Health Medical Center to provide exceptional care to every patient, to improve community health, and also aligns with its values regarding how patients and families are treated.
Our program's mission aligns with the Creighton mission to improve the human condition, and also aligns with its vision to develop leaders in medicine, health, and well-being.
Valleywise Health Medical Center Mission Statement:
- Our mission is to provide exceptional care, without exception, every patient, every time.
- Our vision is to be nationally recognized for transforming care to improve community health.
- Our values guide how we treat each other, our patients, families and visitors.
Creighton Mission Statement:
- In Creighton’s Jesuit, Catholic tradition, the mission of the School of Medicine is to improve the human condition with a diverse body of students, faculty and staff who provide excellence in educating learners, healthcare professionals, and the public; advancing knowledge; and, providing comprehensive patient care.
- Vision: United by our Jesuit, Catholic identity, we transform learners into exceptional healthcare professionals and scientists who are leaders in advancing medicine, health, and well-being.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists with the interpersonal and psychotherapeutic skills to engage effectively with families in the treatment of their children. This aim ties into the Creighton mission of providing comprehensive patient care. This will be measured by collateral evaluations completed by parents, evaluations of graduate effectiveness with families as reported in employer surveys, and related ACGME milestone sub-competency threads.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists who feel enthusiasm for the field and find a sense of meaning (one aspect of Well-Being) in treating and improving the lives of children with psychiatric illness and developmental needs. This aim ties into the Creighton mission of improving the human condition and the Creighton vision of developing leaders in Well-Being. This will be measured by the responses to questions on the annual ACGME Well-Being resident survey.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists who excel in the evaluation and treatment of children and adolescents with the most serious and impairing mental illness, whether biological or traumatic in origin. This aim ties into the Creighton mission of improving the human condition, the Creighton vision of developing leaders in advancing medicine and health, and the Valleywise mission of providing exceptional care, without exception, every patient, every time. Measurement: Each child psychiatry fellow completes a rotation at Devereux residential treatment center and a rotation at the Valleywise Behavioral Health Center Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatient Unit. At these locations, each fellow successfully completes a clinical skills examination with a school-age child with serious mental illness and with an adolescent with serious mental illness.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists who are able to to work in multiple community settings, populations, and types of practices, and are dedicated to providing access to care within our local community. Our program is community-based, with a wide variety of rotations and populations, and should prepare fellows for this. This ties into the Valleywise Health vision of being nationally recognized for transforming care to improve community health. Planned measurement: 1. Goal for at least 90 percent of graduates to remain local and practice in the community. 2. Graduates will practice in varied settings in our community; some will practice in the outpatient public sector, some will have administrative careers, some will have private practices, some will practice inpatient, some will practice telepsychiatry, some will work with indigenous populations.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists with an exceptional psychiatric and child psychiatric knowledge base. This ties into the Creighton mission of transforming learners into exceptional healthcare providers. Planned measurement: Boards and In-Training Exam performance.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists with expertise in the assessment and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This aim ties into the Creighton mission of improving the human condition and the Creighton vision of developing leaders in advancing medicine and health. Planned measurement: Each fellow will complete a rotation at Aurora Specialized Needs Unit (SNU) for children with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. Each fellow will complete an autism spectrum disorder evaluation at Southwest Human Development (SWHD) Good FIT Center, advocate for their patients with ASD, and produce at least one services eligibility report for the Division of Developmental Disabilities. Each fellow will work with care coordinators and multidisciplinary teams in the care of these children.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists with expertise in assessing and treating very young children; ages 0-5. They will have knowledge of DC:0-5, the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood. This ties into the Valleywise Health mission of providing exceptional care, without exception, every patient, every time and the Creighton vision of developing leaders in advancing medicine and health. Measurement: Each fellow completes an Infant and Preschool Age rotation at Southwest Human Development Good FIT center. Each fellow successfully completes a preschool age Clinical Skills Verification examination.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists who understand the impact of their own culture on the physician-patient relationship with children and their families. This aim ties into the Valleywise Health mission of providing exceptional care, without exception, every patient, every time. Planned measurement: each fellow will complete a Cross Cultural Child Psychiatry class as well as other cultural trainings and will complete a paper which addresses this aim. Each fellow completes a rotation working with indigenous children in the Gila River Indian Community.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists who recognize and seek to remediate health care disparities. In addition to regularly treating underserved populations, each year the fellows will participate in a project designed to address health care disparities. This aim ties into the Creighton mission of developing leaders in advancing health.
- To develop child and adolescent psychiatrists who understand the importance of contributing to the field of child and adolescent psychiatry through peer reviewed scholarly activity. By graduation, each fellow will have completed an original research project that is submitted for peer review such as Academic Excellence Day (AED), some other peer- reviewed venue, or peer reviewed journal. This aim ties into the Creighton mission of advancing knowledge.
The Creighton University Arizona Health Education Alliance
In 2017, Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center (SJHMC), Creighton University (CUSOM), Valleywise Health, and District Medical Group (DMG) joined forces to form the Creighton University Arizona Health Education Alliance. The Creighton University Arizona Health Education Alliance supports Creighton University School of Medicine - Phoenix Graduate Medical Education by providing strategic, financial and operational resources.
