Monitor on Psychology - December 2011 - (Page 46)

Training future psychologists and other health-care professionals is a key part of Cherokee’s mission, Freeman added. Gilbert Newman, PhD, director of clinical training at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, Calif., described the program he created to prepare psychology students and psychologists to work in integrated primary-care settings. Many psychologists who work in primary care weren’t trained to do so, said Newman. “They learned a lot by the seat of their pants,” he said, adding that many think that primarycare psychology should be a postdoctoral specialization. Believing that students need preparation much earlier in their training, Newman launched a primary-care training program in 2004. A grant from the federal Graduate Psychology Education program allowed him to expand his efforts, as has a grant from the Mental Health Service Administration in California, designed to enhance programs for mental health and the homeless. “With health-care reform, there’s a strong effort afoot to rebuild the primary-care workforce and invest in the community health center system,” Newman said. “We have an opportunity here ... to really repopulate the public health system with psychologists.” De-emphasizing psychotherapy, the training emphasizes consultation skills, rapid interventions, leadership and advocacy — something Newman said is crucial given the fact Psychologists at Cherokee Health Systems in Knoxville, tenn., treat a wide variety of patients and health and behavioral conditions, said Cherokee chief executive officer Dr. Dennis Freeman. “this isn’t traditional psychotherapy co-located in a primary-care office,” he said. “It’s a new paradigm.” that leaders in FQHCs and other public systems often confuse psychologists and social workers. Seiji Hayashi, MD, chief medical officer in the Bureau of Primary Health Care at the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, ended with a look at the role of behavioral health within FQHCs. Incorporating a psychologist into an FQHC — especially a small, rural facility — can be challenging, Hayashi admitted, but doing so can be transformative. “If we can really integrate behavioral health into primary care, that’s a game changer,” he said. One of Hayashi’s own patients illustrates the urgent need for integration. After seeing the woman for two years, Hayashi still couldn’t get her diabetes under control. Finally, he thought to ask if she ever heard voices. It turned out she did and was seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist at a community mental health center. Hayashi hadn’t known about them and they weren’t aware of all the medications he was giving the woman for her diabetes, hypertension and hepatitis C. “It was an ‘Aha’ moment,” said Hayashi. n —R.A. ClAy Monitor on psychology • DeceMber 2011 46 http://www.apa.org/books http://www.apa.org/books

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - December 2011

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
From the CEO
Willpower Pioneer Wins $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize
Single-Sex Schooling Called Into Question by Prominent Researchers
Maternal Depression Stunts Childhood Growth, Research Suggests
For Boys, Sharing May Seem Like a Waste of Time
Good News for Postdoc Applicants
In Brief
Treatment Guideline Development Now Under Way
Government Relations Update
Psychologist Named Va Mental Health Chief
The Limits of Eyewitness Testimony
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
Time Capsule
Deconstructing Suicide
Questionnaire
A Focus on Interdisciplinarity
A Time of ‘Enormous Change’
The Science Behind Team Science
Good Science Requires Good Conflict
A New Paradigm of Care
Speaking of Education
Science Directions
New Labels, New Attitudes?
Psychologist Profile
Early Career Psychology
Unintended Consequences
Better Options for Troubled Teens
Saving Lives, One Organ at a Time
New Journal Editors
APA News
Division Spotlight
Guidelines for the Conduct of President-Elect Nominations and Elections
American Psychological Foundation
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011