Electives

A special feature of this program is that Second Year fellows have ample opportunity to create individualized elective experiences.

Time

Second Year fellows have approximately 1.25 days of elective time per week for 12 months.

Description

Fellows can intensively focus their elective choices in an area of particular interest, or they can perform several electives in a wider range of disciplines. Numerous elective opportunities are available, and fellows are also encouraged to organize new elective opportunities in areas of special interest with program review and approval.

Fellows can return to a First Year clinical service, where they function as a senior fellow on the service. Alternatively, they can choose from a wide array of electives at the hospital. Research and teaching elective experiences are also available.

The following elective experiences are usually available, subject to individual schedule constraints. 

• Bereavement (Lurie Children's Heartlight Program)
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Sleep Disorders (Anna Ivanenko, MD, PhD)
• Child protection research (Mary Clyde Pierce, MD)
• Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Consultation service senior elective (Alba Pergjika, MD)
• Family therapy (Richard Wendel, DMin, LMFT)
• Gender affirmative care (Aron Janssen, MD)
• Group therapy electives in areas such as disruptive behavior disorders, social skills, parental support, sleep disturbances, child anxiety, CBT, etc. (supervisor varies)
• Hematology/oncology consult (Edna Romero, PhD)
• Individual research, teaching, or administrative electives (supervisors vary)
• Inpatient unit senior elective 
• Medical psychology seminars (Jill Weissberg-Benchell, PhD)
• Neuropsychology/developmental assessment (Frank Zelko, PhD)
• Pain program (Bonnie Essner, PhD)
• Partial hospitalization program senior elective
• Psychoanalytic course participation (The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis)
• School and community consultation/Center for Childhood Resilience (Colleen Cicchetti, PhD; Karen Gouze, PhD; Khushbu Shah, MD)
• Speech and language assessment
• Transplant evaluations
• Trauma team (Megan Lerner, LCSW)
• Urgent care (Aron Janssen, MD)

Overall Goal

Goals for individual electives are determined in consultation with the elective supervisor and are approved by the program director. The overall goal of all elective experiences is to provide fellows with exposure to a wide range of subspecialty areas to gain expertise and aid in focusing career choices.