Naval Medical Center San Diego Psychology Internship
Also known as "Balboa" Hospital because of its location within beautiful Balboa Park, Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) offers a variety of exciting opportunities for our psychology interns. You will not only work with experienced psychologists, but you will also be a contributing member of a network of physicians, dentists, nurse practitioners, and others dedicated to providing quality care to military members and their families.
NMCSD Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology
San Diego Internship Training Manual
Trainee Admissions, Support, and Outcome Data - San Diego
Fully accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) since 1991, the NMCSD psychology internship provides exceptional learning experiences that may not be available in "mono-focused" internships, such as those affiliated with student counseling centers, correctional institutions, or even community mental health settings.
The NMCSD internship provides varied training experiences in numerous venues, while maintaining a cohesive faculty core and a central training vision.
Overall Training Aims
The internship has two overarching goals. The first is to train psychologists with intermediate to advanced competency for entry level, generalist practice in health service psychology. The second is to provide these psychologists with the knowledge and skills required to practice health service psychology effectively within the military.
Competencies
By the end of the internship year, interns are expected to demonstrate intermediate to advanced competency in the nine Profession-Wide Competencies outlined in the APA’s Standards on Accreditation.
Major Rotations
Five unique rotations support NMCSD’s overall mission. The primary supervising psychologists of each rotation, in consultation with the internship Training Director, tailor these training experiences to each intern's educational needs.
Adult Outpatient Rotation
Our outpatient mental health clinic provides assessment and treatment services for active-duty members, their dependents, and military retirees.
Typically, interns provide assessment and individual psychotherapy. Patients are primarily active-duty military members, although interns also have the opportunity to work with military spouses and retirees. This rotation includes a focused "mini-rotation" in psychological testing, with intense exposure to assessment and psychometric interpretation. Although psychometric testing is a vital part of all four rotations, instruction and training on the administration and interpretation of psychological tests is concentrated in this mini-rotation.
Health Psychology Rotation
During this rotation, interns respond to health psychology consults from other inpatient and outpatient services, including cardiology, neurology, oncology, and the pain clinic, among others. Some of the more common issues addressed in this rotation are sleep disorders, chronic pain, poor adherence to prescribed medical regimens, functional neurological symptom disorder, and anxiety disorders co-occurring with physical illnesses and injuries. Interns treat these problems with behavioral and health psychology interventions such as mindfulness, biofeedback, stress-management techniques, and cognitive behavioral strategies.
Operational Mental Health Clinics
During these rotations, interns work off-site with active-duty Navy and Marine Corps personnel who are stationed on ships or at nearby Navy and Marine Corps bases. Interns typically work in the Mental Health Operational Outreach Division (i.e., the MOOD Clinic) at Naval Station San Diego, and in the Mental Health Clinic for San Diego’s Marine Corps Recruit Depot. In these settings, interns are able to experience the professional life of Navy Psychologists, who often work outside the traditional hospital setting.
At Naval Station San Diego, interns help active-duty members with issues ranging from adjustment disorders to active psychosis, and hone their skills in rapid assessment. At the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, interns provide services to Marine Corps recruits, Marine Corps Drill Instructors, and other Marines who work on the base. Problems range from mild depression to first break schizophrenia.
Inpatient Service and Consultation/Liaison Rotation:
Through this rotation, interns gain experience with the unique demands of working on an inpatient mental health treatment unit. Interns work daily with psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, and hospital corps staff, gaining competence with the admission, diagnosis, treatment, and disposition of patients with mental health disorders of a severity that requires hospitalization. Interns also “take call” one day every other weekend, giving them the opportunity to respond to psychiatric emergencies in the Emergency Medical Department, on the inpatient psychiatric wards, or elsewhere in the hospital.
While on this rotation interns spend time on the Emergency Psychiatry Consultation/Liaison Service, responding to crisis-oriented consults as part of a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, psychiatrists, social workers, and other mental health professionals. During these emergency consults, interns learn how to work quickly with emergent issues and how to combine data from numerous sources into a well-developed picture of a client’s current functioning.
Trans-Rotational Clinical Experiences
In addition to their normal rotation caseloads, interns follow three to four long-term (over 4 months) cases during the internship year. These cases involve clients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as clients dealing with complex mood, anxiety, and personality issues. All interns receive weekly ongoing supervision in support of these treatment cases.
Additional NMCSD Opportunities
NMCSD offers a variety of additional training experiences to help interns achieve their educational and professional goals. These include:
Didactic Training Presentations
A variety of seminars and workshops are offered to present contemporary information and training to supplement an intern’s clinical experiences. These presentations vary in scope and content, but they focus primarily on issues that are of concern to Navy psychologists. Frequently, presenters are distinguished colleagues from the Navy or civilian clinical/academic communities.
Operational Experiences
Numerous operational experiences are offered to interns throughout their training year. These can include participation in Marine Corps Recruit graduation ceremonies, weapons training, and the assessment/selection of active-duty personnel seeking special duty assignments.
Interns may also get underway aboard a major Navy combatant vessel (often an aircraft carrier), where they interact with Sailors, learn the duties of the ship's psychologist, and develop an appreciation for the demands of shipboard life. In addition, interns are typically able to spend time with the First Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California. Here they gain familiarity with the operational stresses of the Marine Corps, and develop the skills required for effective consultation with Marine Corps Commands.
Supervision
Interns attend weekly supervision sessions with their primary rotation supervisor and with the internship Training Director. For trans-rotational cases, interns are supervised either by the Training Director or by another psychologist designated by the Training Director.
At a minimum, interns receive 4 hours of direct supervision a week. An "open-door" policy allows for additional supervision or consultation as needed. For more information on our internship, please see our Training Manual.
Important dates:
- Deadline for submitting APPIs: 13 November 2023
- Deadline for completing Navy commissioning application: 15 December 2023
- Application interviews will be conducted between 28 and 30 November 2023. These interviews will be virtual, although opportunities to visit the NMCSD campus in-person will also be available. Information about in-person visits will be communicated to applicants in the fall.
Contact:
William M. Hunt, Ph.D., ABPP
Internship Training Director
Naval Medical Center San Diego
San Diego, California
Phone - (619) 532-6209
Email – william.m.hunt.civ@health.mil