Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience
Clinical Psychology Training Program
October 25, 2021
Dear applicants:
Congratulations on being at this point in your graduate training! Thank you for your interest in the Clinical Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at the University of Chicago Medicine. We are pleased to provide you with our updated 2022-23 information. We are listed in the Universal Psychology Postdoctoral Directory (https://www.appic.org/Postdocs/Universal-Psychology-Postdoctoral-Directory-UPPD) and will abide by APPIC guidelines for the 2022-2023 training year unless otherwise indicated. Materials should be submitted through APPA CAS.
Our clinical psychology fellowships are a component of the larger Clinical Psychology Training Program based in the Adult and Child Sections of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. Our training program includes psychology externships in many different areas, an APA-accredited clinical psychology doctoral internship, and most recently, postdoctoral fellowships in psychology. Thus, clinical psychology has been an important component of departmental training for many years and is integrated within the interdisciplinary educational mission of the Department and the larger Medical Center. Our fellowships are designed to train health service psychologists for entry-level practice in academic settings in the specialized areas of clinical health psychology, pediatric psychology, pediatric neuropsychology, and trauma. For 2022-23, we will not be recruiting for pediatric psychology or pediatric neuropsychology fellowships. The hallmarks of our program include evidence-based approaches to assessment, consultation, and intervention, and the integration of science and practice. While our programs do include some specific requirements, we attempt to meet our fellows’ specific training goals in order to best prepare for an academic clinical career. Ample supervision is available with opportunities to attend didactics with other trainees. We believe that we offer a challenging and supportive setting for obtaining fellowship training in Clinical Psychology.
For the 2022-2023 training year, we will offer three postdoctoral fellowships in clinical psychology. Our Adult Clinical Health Psychology track will have one position and applications should be addressed to Dr. Shona Vas. Our Trauma Fellowship will have two positions and applications should be addressed to Drs. Brad Stolbach and Sonya Dinizulu. Our annual stipend is consistent with NIH salary guidelines for postdoctoral training ($53,760) and is offered as part of a comprehensive package of benefits.
Our application deadline is Wednesday, December 15, 2021 (11:59 EST) for our Adult and Trauma fellowships. You will be contacted by email if you are selected for a virtual interview. Interviews will occur on Thursdays, January 20th and January 27th, 2022. Applications for positions open after 2/23/22 will be reviewed on a rolling basis until filled.
Before deciding to apply to our program, please review our materials very carefully. You might also find it useful to review our internship brochure to learn more about our department, our training philosophy, our faculty, and available didactics, although fellows’ clinical experiences are different than those of interns, and internship rotations are not available to fellows unless specified. We want you to fully appreciate the structure of department within which our clinical psychology training programs are embedded. We hope that you will apply to our fellowship because you believe it is a “great fit” with your long-term career goals. We will provide you with appropriate supervision, mentorship, and support for your professional development as a health service psychologist who is able to integrate science and practice in an academic environment.
NOTE: As we enter the third year of health service psychology training to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognize the importance of also providing you with information about its impact on our training program. We have continued to respond to the level of risk posed by this disease with the safety of our trainees, staff, faculty, and patients as our paramount concern, while continuing to meet the needs of the communities we serve. We are grateful for the scientific strides that have contributed to a greater understanding of the disease and the availability of vaccination. All employees at UCM are required to be vaccinated for both COVID-19 and influenza (with medical or religious exemptions available in rare circumstances). We currently provide inpatient care, consultation services, neuropsychological assessment, and some integrated care using hybrid models as far as possible with appropriate safety protocols for when face-to-face contact is necessary. Outpatient services for psychiatric care and psychotherapy in particular are being conducted primarily using telehealth methods at this time, although options exist to see patients in person when clinically indicated. We conduct didactics and some supervision virtually in order to support our trainees’ safety. In order to address some of the losses associated with remote work such as interprofessional collaboration, socialization among trainees and with our faculty, development of a support system for our trainees, and a general sense of community, we currently require trainees, staff, and faculty to be on site for a minimum of two days per week. Our training program, department, division, and institution follow infection control procedures and national and state regulations as informed by science and safety. We are committed to maintaining the integrity of our training program and the acquisition of profession-wide competencies while balancing the safety of our trainees, faculty, and patients. The unpredictability and volatile nature of the pandemic, especially with regard to the recent spread of the Delta variant, have demonstrated that it is impossible to have definite expectations for the future, and we recognize that we will need to be flexible and creative as we continue to adapt to this situation. All adaptations will be designed to preserve the integrity of our program and prioritize safety of our trainees and faculty.
We wish you luck as you complete your degree! We look forward to reviewing your application and possibly meeting you in person. Feel free to contact us by email if you have further questions.
Shona N. Vas, Ph.D., ABPP
Director, Clinical Psychology Training
Director, Cognitive-Behavior Therapy Program
Associate Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience
Contact Information: svas@bsd.uchicago.edu
