A new Psychiatry Residency Program, based at Osceola Regional Medical Center and the Orlando VA Medical Center has received initial ACGME accreditation and is seeking immediate applicants.
This program is part of the UCF College of Medicine-Hospital Corporation of America North Florida Division Consortium seeking to add more than 600 residency slots to Florida by 2020. In the last three years, the consortium has added 20 graduate medical education programs that are currently training about 250 physicians in Central and North Central Florida. The addition of the Psychiatry program will increase the number of programs to 21.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medicine Education (ACGME) approved the Psychiatry Residency program for 6 residents per year of the four-year program, for a total of 24 residents. The program will be directed by Dr. Martin Klapheke, Assistant Dean and Professor of Psychiatry at the UCF College of Medicine.
UCF and HCA started the residency programs to help address Florida's and the nation's physician shortage. Dr. Klapheke noted that a 2014 Florida workforce report showed that by 2025, Psychiatry will be the physician specialty with the highest shortage - a deficit of about 2,000 psychiatrists statewide. "The faculty, staff and residents in this new UCF/HCA Residency have the opportunity to make a major impact on mental health care in Central Florida by providing more services and more practitioners in the coming years," he said.
Osceola Regional Medical Center is a 396-bed tertiary hospital that is part of the HCA hospital group and includes 500 affiliated physicians. The hospital had more than 18,000 annual admissions and 86,000 Emergency Department visits in the last year. Of those, 446 direct hospital admissions and about 1,400 patients to the Emergency Department needed psychiatric care. Osceola Regional offers a range of mental health programs, including inpatient, partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient services
The new Orlando VA Medical Center is a state-of-the-art, 1.2 million square foot facility featuring a large multi-specialty outpatient clinic which includes a wide-range of adult psychiatry and counseling services and 130-inpatient beds that include psychiatry services. The VA also has a 60-bed domiciliary and a 120-bed outpatient living center with in-house psychiatric and counseling services, including geriatric psychiatry.
Residents will also rotate at Nemours Children's Hospital in Lake Nona to gain experience in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The program will be participating in the NRMP Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP). Applications following SOAP should be submitted through Krystal D. Hernandez, GME Program Coordinator, Psychiatry Residency Program, Osceola Regional Medical Center, at krystal.hernandez@hcahealthcare.com. Qualified applicants will be selected for interviews.
