Residency

We support our residents to become talented clinicians prepared to serve individuals who have mental health needs with sensitivity, compassion, and rigorous excellence. More importantly, we encourage our residents to grow as team leaders and team members, as optimal mental health care always occurs in a team context.  

As a resident, you have many opportunities to study with highly knowledgeable faculty who are dedicated to excellence in patient care and scholarship. Many of our faculty are recognized as national and international experts in their fields. We have special strengths in treatment-resistant depression, stress and trauma, early childhood development, adolescent mood disorders,  psychosis spectrum illness (including first episode of psychosis), and addictions. We also have a number of excellent training opportunities in women’s mental health, forensic psychiatry, veterans’ mental health care, community psychiatry, and services for marginalized communities.

Our department is strongly committed to the journey of eradicating racism and fostering inclusive excellence. For our department’s position statement, please see the Antiracism Statement on this page and consider this video.

Psychiatrists should represent multiple backgrounds, life experiences, and viewpoints to best serve our patients and advance the field. We are eager to appreciate the unique strengths and contributions of each individual, and we are mindful of every applicant’s complex background including racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender identity, as well as socioeconomic status and geography. A diverse group of residents strengthens our program, enhances our delivery of patient care, and fosters change to reduce healthcare disparities.

We have many active DEI initiatives in the Department and we encourage everyone to participate (more information here). As a resident, you can partner with the program’s Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Thread Lead, a resident who is ready to support residents from diverse backgrounds, to develop curricular and outreach projects, and to represent the residency program at the Department D&I Committee. For more information, please contact our current D&I Thread Lead Jonas Attilus at attil002@umn.edu. 

You may also contact our current residents with any additional questions about the residency experiences (see the sidebar on that page).

Additional resources for medical students and prospective residents:

• 5 keys to navigating the residency Match as an LGBTQ applicant – American Medical Association
• Key tips for medical residents facing microaggressions – American Medical Association
• Racism and Medical Education: Telling the Full Story – American Association of Medical Colleges

We encourage you to develop an individualized pathway of professional development as you learn and grow through your four years of residency. This can be in one of three areas of professional emphasis or “tracks:” Medical Education, Clinical Expert, and Research. See below for more information about each track. (And we hope to develop a fourth pathway soon in Leadership– stay tuned!)

In addition, all residents are asked to choose an overarching focus as they create their individualized pathways: Clinical Neuroscience, Development Across the Lifespan, or Global and Community Mental Health. These areas of overarching focus help you to create and pursue a thematic passion to form the foundation of your professional development. Faculty and residents who share the same thematic passion will meet periodically for discussions and presentations.

All residents will receive an excellent foundation in general psychiatry clinical practice; however, if you have specialized clinical interests, you may focus your elective time doing an individualized pathway of specialized training to develop your unique area of expertise. Examples of specialized clinical training opportunities include: early phases of psychosis, treatment-resistant depression, interventional psychiatry (TMS, ketamine, ECT, VNS), early stage mood disorders, addiction psychiatry, tribal mental health needs, primary care consultations, perinatal psychiatry, women’s mental health, geriatric psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry.  

Many residents continue to expand on their clinical skills with fellowship training in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Geriatric Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine, and Neuromodulation Medicine.

We are very proud of our thriving and welcoming community of psychiatric and behavioral science researchers. Our department is currently ranked #15 in the country on the Blue Ridge rankings of NIH funding for research. If you are interested in a research career, we offer training to help you develop your scientific independence and put you on track to write your first research grant. We provide a generous research schedule, especially early in residency, which allows you to begin your research work right away. We also foster strong mentor relationships to help support you to become an independent investigator.

More about Research Programs/Faculty

One of the special strengths here at the University of Minnesota is the thriving and highly collaborative interdisciplinary research that integrates basic neurosciences, neuroimaging, and clinical psychiatry research. Learn more.

You can find out more about the wide range of research we do by visiting our faculty bios, or by contacting the following individuals:

Kelvin Lim, MD – Director of Adult Mental Health Research (and neuroimaging investigator)

Jeff Wozniak, PhD, LP – Director of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Research (and fetal alcohol syndrome investigator)

Sophia Albott, MD – Division Director for Adult Mental Health (and PTSD/depression researcher)

Katie Cullen, MD – Division Director for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (and adolecent depression/suicidality researcher)

Sophia Vinogradov, MD – Department Chair (and early psychosis researcher).

Scholarly Work

Presentation to the 2022 World Congress of Psychiatry by Hamed Ekhtiari, MD, PhD: New Advances in Addiction Treatment with Brain Stimulation.

Zick, Jennifer L., Staglin, B., Vinogradov, S. (2022) Eliminate Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research.

Zick, Jennifer L., Crowe, D. A., Blackman, R. K., Schultz, K., Bergstrand, D. W., DeNicola, A. L., Carter, R. E., Ebner, T. J., Lanier, L. M., Netoff, T. I., & Chafee, M. V. (2021). Disparate insults relevant to schizophrenia converge on impaired spike synchrony and weaker synaptic interactions in prefrontal local circuits. Current Biology.

Redish, A.D., Kepecs, A, Anderson, L.M., Calvin, O., Grissom, N.M., Haynos, A.F., Heilbronner, S.R., Herman, A.B., Jacob, S., Ma, S., Vilares, I., Vinogradov, S., Walters, C.J., Widge, A.S., Zick, Jennifer L., Zilverstand, A. (2021) Computational validity: Using computation to translate behaviors across species.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Zick, Jennifer L, Blackman RK, Crowe DA, Amirikian B, DeNicola AL, Netoff TI, Chafee MV. Blocking NMDAR Disrupts Spike Timing and Decouples Monkey Prefrontal Circuits: Implications for Activity-Dependent Disconnection in Schizophrenia. Neuron. 2018. 

Posters by A. Irem Sonmez, MD:

• Modeling Response Trajectories of TMS in Individuals with Depression.
• Concurrent benzodiazepine use and TMS clinical outcomes.
• Changes in Sleep with rTMS in Adults with TRD: Preliminary Results From a Naturalistic Study.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a PhD to be eligible for the Research track?
No; however, we do seek individuals who have significant prior research experience as an indicator of their interest and commitment.

What research topics are eligible for the Research track?
Our Dept. of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences has a broad range of active research programs and mentors with whom you could be matched. Areas of research strength include neuromodulation, neuroimaging, computational psychiatry, eating disorders, psychosis, adolescent depression, and addiction. Your research topic must align with NIH’s goals. If you are on this track, we expect you to focus on using your research time to acquire pilot data so that you are ready to write your first research grant by your PGY4 year. 

Do I need to have U.S. citizenship/Green card to be eligible?
No. We do, however, expect that you will plan to apply for an NIH research grant in your PGY4 your (NIH Guidelines). If you have a temporary visa for the duration of your residency, you will be expected to apply to the K99/R00 funding mechanism.

If I join the Research track but want to convert to one of the other tracks later, is this possible?
Yes. While this track is for candidates who are committed to a research career, we recognize that this is not a good fit for everyone. An "off ramp" to the Education or Clinical Expert track is possible if your career trajectory changes. 

What does a typical schedule for the Research track look like?

We have a committed group of faculty who are national leaders in the field of medical education. If you are interested in medical education, you can engage in elective work with this highly experienced and committed faculty and become involved in numerous initiatives in medical student or resident education. This includes working on education program evaluation and quality improvement, developing new curriculum, honing skills as a direct clinical supervisor, or assisting with education research projects.

Psychiatry Education Research Lab

The Psychiatry Education Research Lab, overseen by Drs. Kaz Nelson and Lora Wichser, has expertise conducting a range of education research projects and can offer you many opportunities for participation. For more information, please feel free to reach out to our faculty experts: Phil Luber, MD; Kaz Nelson, MD; Lora Wichser, MD; Jonathan Homans, MD; and Felicia Hansell, MD.

Scholarly Work

PsychResChat poster accepted for the 2020 APA conference showcasing data on how a Twitter platform for trainees co-founded by Dr. Tolu Odebunmi and Dr. Christina Warner designed to improve resident wellbeing.

Stephanie Wick, DO, developed a PGY-1 neuroscience didactic curriculum based on NNCI resources to increase resident confidence in incorporating neuroscience principles into psychiatric practice.

Poster by Stephanie Wick, DO, demonstrates actions of the APPLE (Advanced Psychiatry Pathways Longitudinal Experience) task force, which is a collaborative group focused on resident wellness, curriculum redesign, and easing change related stress amongst residents.