Wayne State University

The fellowship is a 12-month academic training program that provides comprehensive didactic instruction and extensive, supervised clinical experience in both civil and criminal forensic psychiatry for residents at the PGY-5 level or higher. A major strength of the program is the extensive experience offered in civil forensic psychiatry. Fellows are primary evaluators and reviewers, as well as team members, on a wide variety of civil forensic cases, including emotional damages, fitness for duty, disability, competence and standard of care. There is a diverse faculty including ABPN certified forensic psychiatrists, forensic psychologists and an attorney.

The rotation sites include the following:
1. The Third Judicial Circuit Court Psychiatric Clinic, where fellows perform a variety of forensic evaluations on individual at various stages of legal proceedings from pretrial through post adjudication. Fellows may also provide treatment in a court ordered treatment program for sex offenders.
2. The Wayne County Jail, a 2,800 inmate facility that has a 138-bed inpatient psychiatric service. In addition, multi-disciplinary psychiatric services are also provided for approximately 250 mentally ill inmates housed in the general population of the jail.
3. The Clinic for Child Studies, which provides forensic evaluations and psychiatric treatment of juveniles involved in a variety of legal proceedings, including criminal and civil. The clinic also has an extensive treatment program for juvenile sexual offenders.
4. The University Psychiatric Center (UPC) is a clinical/education and research hub of the Wayne State University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience. The UPC forensic psychiatry service is where the fellows gain civil forensic psychiatry experience under the supervision of the faculty which consists of one half-time psychiatrist and four part-time psychiatrists, two part-time psychologists and one part-time attorney.

The rotations are balanced with a comprehensive didactic program which includes a 25-week landmark legal cases seminar, three Wayne State University Law School courses, and other seminars and conferences including ethical issues in forensic psychiatry, forensic neuropsychology and regularly scheduled case conferences at each rotation site. On each rotation site, fellows are expected to testify on their own cases, and this testimony is observed and feedback is given by fellowship faculty. Fellows also participate in two mock trials per year. Fellows must be eligible for an unlimited Michigan Medical License.