About the MCW Central Wisconsin Psychiatry Residency Program

It is based in the communities of Central Wisconsin: Wausau, Rhinelander, Tomah, Ashland, Marshfield and Stevens Point. The direct faculty are the psychiatrists from these communities.

Our residents will receive didactic teaching through lectures, seminars, and case conferences through the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee which was recently recognized by ACGME for its academic excellence as the Best Large Program in the United States. Residents also benefit from local didactics with program faculty.

MCW is uniquely committed to serving in areas of need. Our program will partner with the communities we serve and provide quality, cost effective and accessible mental health services. Residents will have the opportunity in their PGY-4 year to develop a community-based project designed to collaborate with local agencies or schools and meet a community need. Hopefully this will result in a presentation, poster, or publication. Our educational program emphasizes personal, one-to-one, teacher to learner experiences in a variety of clinical settings including private, community and VA hospitals and clinics.

• Elective research opportunities in a department that is ranked 22nd nationally among medical school psychiatry departments receiving National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funding.
• Opportunity to teach medical students on clinical rotations and didactics.
• Although the MCW Library is physically located in Milwaukee, its primary resources remain available to all residents and faculty regardless of location. Librarian consultation, document delivery requests, library training and library search requests are all available via internet or telephone.

• There is limited overnight in-house call with the Central Wisconsin Psychiatry Program. There is occasional weekend rounding and select rotations with night and weekend coverage. Residents will have the time for the reflection so important for understanding and improving one’s performance and growing identity as a psychiatrist.
• Our residents’ wellbeing is important. There is an Experiential Group offering PGY1 residents a supportive forum to develop class cohesiveness and draw from mutual experiences. This is a new program; our first residents are breaking new ground and will always have open access to the program director. We will work to develop and implement a wellness plan for each resident and our small size ensures personal attention.
• Our Central Wisconsin location provides the opportunity for a balanced, affordable lifestyle with easy access to the great outdoors and without the worries of big city life and traffic.

• MCW believes that psychiatrists should be well rounded and places a strong emphasis on psychotherapy training. Residents will have a longitudinal experience to work with patients for several years. Supervision for psychotherapy will take place with local psychiatrists and psychologists as well as the psychotherapy expertise of the Medical College campus in Milwaukee via virtual connections. The psychotherapy faculty includes psychoanalysts and experts in cognitive and behavioral therapy (CBT) as part of our unique separate psychotherapy training program.
• Psychiatric Crisis Service in Marathon County is a psychiatric emergency room experience in a community setting where residents learn the fundamentals of legal commitments and testifying in court. They also will manage high acuity patients and psychiatric emergencies and coordinate care using local resources.
• In the PG4 year, our residents have numerous elective options including: Inpatient Psychiatry, Outpatient Psychiatry, Integrative Psychiatry (Consult/Liaison), Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), Telepsychiatry, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Residential Treatment, Research, Geropsychiatry, Community Psychiatry, Partial Hospital Crisis & Mobile Psychiatry, Administrative Psychiatry.
• The Medical College of Wisconsin is also home to fellowships in Addiction, Child and Adolescent, Geriatrics, Forensics and Consultation-Liaison.