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Cutting Edge
Treatment

Postdoctoral Residency – Santa Rosa

North Bay Consortium (Vallejo, Vacaville, Santa Rosa and San Rafael)

Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center
Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center

Santa Rosa in Sonoma County has a population of approximately 180,000 and is the largest city in California’s North Coast area and the county seat. An hour and fifteen minutes north of San Francisco, Santa Rosa is a gateway to the wine country with many wineries and vineyards nearby. It is also a haven for bikers, paddlers, and hikers with its close proximity to the Russian River resort area, Jack London State Historic Park, Armstrong Redwoods Reserve, and Annadel State Park. Additional local attractions include the Charles M. Schulz Museum, creator of the Peanuts comic strip; the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens and the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts. Downtown Santa Rosa, which encompasses historic Railroad Square and Old Courthouse Square, is an area of shopping, restaurants, and theaters.

The Kaiser Santa Rosa Medical Center provides care to more than 169,000 members in Sonoma County and is the largest private employer in the area. Satellite medical clinics are located in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. In 2017, Kaiser Permanente opened a second Psychiatry office on Mercury Way. The department is comprised of four teams: Adult, Child/Family, Addiction Medicine, and Behavioral Medicine. Our clientele come from a wide socioeconomic spectrum and reside in mostly urban and some rural areas. The patient population is ethnically diverse and presents with a wide array of treatment issues.

Program Curriculum

Equity, Inclusion & Diversity

We are committed to nurturing and integrating diversity training into all aspects of our postdoctoral residency program by:

Providing residents with opportunities to work with patients who represent various aspects of diversity, including age, religion, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, values, and lifestyle.

Placing a high value on residents’ willingness to engage in self-reflection, and supporting the exploration of attitudes, beliefs and therapeutic postures that could impact clinical interactions.

Maintaining a consistent focus in clinical supervision on expanding residents’ multicultural awareness and competence in the provision of psychotherapeutic services and providing guidance, training, and resources on topics such as mitigating unconscious bias, respecting every voice, and cultivating a sense of inclusion and belonging in the workplace.

Residents are encouraged to participate in the Regional Mental Health Training Program EID Committee’s advanced trainings on topics related to cultural sensitivity and competence along with a forum to reflect on and discuss their varied experiences in a safe environment.

Santa Rosa Kaiser Permanente places a high value on continuing to learn, educate and discuss EID issues as it relates to our field, our work, and our clients. Residents will attend weekly EID group supervision and receive EID focused didactics. Residents will be encouraged to explore their own intersecting identities and how their background and culture influences who they are as therapists, as well as their relationships with patients. A central focus of cultural competency is placing a high priority on education, scientific inquiry, self-examination, and discussion. Postdocs will learn to apply their knowledge and skill set across social and cultural factors and examine their cultural position as well as their client’s.

Didactic Training

Regularly scheduled weekly didactic seminars, formerly held at the consortium level, are now organized, and administered regionally for all KP NorCal postdoctoral residents. Residents are required to attend a two-hour weekly virtual seminar, which focuses on developing competencies and expertise in clinical areas most relevant to their day-to-day work.

Our Regional Mental Health Training Program also sponsors seminars for continuing professional development. The seminars are offered at select times during the year for all KP mental health trainees and staff at Kaiser Northern California Medical Centers. We bring in local and national experts on a variety of cutting-edge topics in mental health treatment and research. Regional seminar dates and a list of speakers and topics can be found on the Regional Mental Health Training Programs website. In addition, many of the presentations are recorded and available under the continuing education lecture library webpage.

Seminars and Meetings

Residents attend various weekly team or departmental meetings, in addition to:

  • Group supervision with the postdoctoral training cohort that includes case consultation and discussion of professional development topics.
  • Training in the supervision of doctoral-level interns over the course of the training year. Residents are taught theories and professional competencies associated with supervision.

Telehealth Training:
Kaiser Permanente has greatly expanded its’ virtual presence, which will allow residents to fully train and practice in a variety of trailblazing platforms in telemedicine to provide accessible mental health care.

Supervision

We believe it is the role of our faculty to mentor, encourage, and support each resident in their journey to becoming a licensed psychologist. Our job as faculty is not only to teach but ensure that your learning process is supported throughout the residency. We foster this learning through ongoing communication and collaboration.

All postdoctoral residents are supervised by licensed psychologists and are assigned to a primary supervisor and a secondary supervisor. The clinical supervisors meet with their assigned resident one hour per week for individual face-to-face supervision. Thus, each resident has two hours of individual supervision per week.

The primary and secondary supervisors are responsible for overseeing the direct delivery of clinical services. The primary supervisor takes a lead role in developing the resident’s learning plan, monitoring their progress, and evaluating their training schedule. The primary supervisor is also responsible for completing the resident’s evaluation after gathering input from other supervisors and staff who may have provided supplementary supervision during rotations or while co-facilitating groups with the resident.

Community Partnership Program

Reflecting Kaiser Permanente’s core commitment to mental health and wellness in our communities, each trainee will spend at least 32 hours during their training year on a Community Partnership Project that focuses on improving mental health in the Sonoma County community beyond our Kaiser Permanente patient members.

The goal of this project is to provide outreach to underserved populations in the community to promote healthy behaviors; Anchors for this project include developing alliances with individuals and/or systems to improve the lives of those served; providing education and training based on the empirical literature; collecting, analyzing, and presenting relevant outcomes data to partnership stakeholders. Training Objectives include gaining a competent understanding of the tenets of Community Psychology, Anti-Racism, Anti-colonialism, Multi-Cultural Psychology and Feminist Psychology as well as gaining experience in community outreach, and the development of partnerships within internal and external systems.

Psychological Assessment

Psychological assessment is a requirement of our residency to ensure a well-rounded training experience. Residents will have the opportunity to conduct full psychological batteries including the WISC, WAIS, Rorschach and other projective tests, Neuropsychological screeners, and the MMPI, and MACI. The assessment process involves the administering and scoring of measures, interpreting results, composing a formal report, and providing feedback to the patient. Residents receive supervision for support, consultation, and training related to assessment.

Program Evaluation

Each resident is required to undertake a program evaluation project during their training year. The project is selected based upon the resident’s interests and skill set and should fall within the regular scope of departmental services.

It may involve collecting and analyzing data to improve administrative operations, or a quality improvement project aimed at improving or assessing a treatment program or process. Examples include developing and evaluating a treatment group, intake procedure or other new programming; evaluating factors associated with treatment outcomes; or a needs assessment of a service that may be enriched by psychological consultation. Residents meet with the program evaluation supervisor as a group regularly over the course of the training year to review progress on their projects.

Tracks and Rotations

Addiction Medicine Recovery Services

The Addiction Medicine Recovery Services track provides the postdoctoral resident with opportunity to work on a multidisciplinary team in the treatment of addictions. Residents will conduct intake assessments, case manage patients in recovery services, provide individual and group psychotherapy, as well as co-dependency treatment. Group treatment opportunities may include intensive recovery groups, longer-term recovery groups and psycho-educational classes. All residents utilize evidence-based interventions within a feedback informed care and outcomes-focused model.

Pain Medicine

Patient population is primarily adults, presenting with chronic pain, frequently diagnosed with fibromyalgia, low back pain, headaches, and trauma and mood disorder histories.

Interventions the resident will learn include pain reprocessing therapy, psychophysiological symptom reduction therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction, acceptance and commitment therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Residents will co-facilitate the pain reprocessing therapy and psychophysiological symptom reduction group. Case load will average 30 patients and typically average 2 intakes per week. Residents will work on a team of medical doctors, physical therapists, registered nurse, pharmacist, and care managers.

Supervision:

  • Individual Supervision (Pain Medicine): 2 hours
  • Group Supervision (Santa Rosa): 1 hour
  • Group Supervision (Pain Medicine): 1 hour

Seminars and Meetings:

  • Monthly pain medicine staff meeting: 1 hour
  • Bi-monthly pain medicine interdisciplinary: case conference 2 hours
  • Monthly pain medicine instructor meeting: 1 hour

Didactic training: 

Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) Seminar
Psychophysiological Symptom Reduction Therapy Seminar (PSRT)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing for Chronic Pain Seminar (EMDR)
Cognitive Processing Therapy for Chronic Pain Seminar (CPT)
Psychosomatic Medicine Seminar
Graded Motor Imagery
Pharmacology for Chronic Pain
Acupuncture for Chronic Pain
Case Management for Chronic Pain
Physical Therapy for Chronic Pain
Spinal Cord Stimulation Implant for Chronic Pain
Program Administration for Chronic Pain
Intermediate and Intensive Groups for Chronic Pain
Assessment of Chronic Pain
Graduate Groups for Chronic Pain
Pain Neuroscience
Biopsychosocial Model of Pain

Adult Psychiatry

The Adult Psychiatry track offers opportunities for the postdoctoral resident to provide individual, group and couples psychotherapy to adults seeking services. Group therapy opportunities may include co-facilitating ACT, DBT, Anxiety and other symptom treatment groups. Postdoctoral residents work within an integrative care model consulting with other therapists, primary and specialty care physicians, psychiatrists, and nurses. All residents will utilize evidence-based interventions within a feedback informed care and outcomes-focused model.

Residents will also have opportunity to administer and interpret standardized screening measures for adult ADHD, as well has how to gather a clinical history for the purpose of diagnosing ADHD. Residents will facilitate consultation and coordination of care for patients with ADHD across departments.

Child Psychiatry

Postdoctoral Residents will be integrated into a dynamic, multidisciplinary, integrated Child Psychiatry team. Residents will provide individual and family therapy to patients seeking mental health treatment. Child Psychiatry sees children as young as 2 years old up until 18 or graduated from High School.

Residents will also have the opportunity to co-facilitate treatment groups.

Residents will also gain expertise in ADHD assessment. Residents will develop skills to help with differential diagnosis by administering, scoring and interpreting cognitive assessments and learning disability assessments. Residents will participate in screening and history taking of patients referred for the diagnosis of ADHD. Residents will participate in psychoeducational groups for parents who are considering a diagnosis of ADHD for their child.

Residents may have the opportunities may include working in the Intensive Outpatient Program for teens; anxiety treatment; parenting classes, learning interventions for the wide range of disorders present in Child Psychiatry Department.

Residents who are interested in gaining more assessment skills may have the opportunity to administer full psychological assessment batteries, which would include IQ measures, Projective and Objective measures.

 

Behavioral Medicine Track

Health Psychology Postdoctoral Residents will receive training in primary care and work alongside an active primary care outpatient clinic. Residents will have the opportunity to diagnose, develop treatment plans, and deliver interventions that target behavioral and psychological factors contributing to total care and positive patient outcomes. This position will help broaden the residents’ brief assessment and intervention skills across many diagnoses with a diverse group of patients. Residents will work collaboratively in a primary care team.

Schedule

  • Direct Patient Care: 20 hours
  • Non-Patient Care: 20 hours Including:
  • Individual Supervision: 2 hours
  • Group Supervision: 2 hours
  • Didactic Training: 2 hours
  • Testing Supervision: up to 2 hours
  • License Prep: 1-2
  • Community Benefit Project and Program Evaluation: 1-2 hours per week depending on project time line
  • Staff meetings and other case conferences
  • Grand Rounds: 1.5 hours every other week

Program Graduates

2022-2023 Cohort

Graduate University/Institute Track/Specialty Rotation Current Position, Specialty & Location
Caitlin McLeod, Psy.D. Wright Institute Adult Outpatient Psychiatry
Daniel Doi, Ph.D. Alliant International University Pain Medicine Department, Behavioral Medicine Services, Bariatric Evaluation

Current Opportunities

Position Track(s)
Behavioral Medicine Service Behavioral Medicine
Child/Adolescent Team Adolescent, Child
Pain Medicine Pain Medicine

Accreditation

  • North Bay Consortium Accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA)
  • Questions related to the program’s accredited status should be directed to the Commission on Accreditation: Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation American Psychological Association 750 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002 Phone: (202) 336-5979 / E-mail: apaaccred@apa.org Web: www.apa.org/ed/accreditation

Location

2235 Mercury Way Suite 240
Santa Rosa, CA 95407

3554 and 3558 Round Barn Blvd
Santa Rosa, CA 95403

Pain Medicine Department
3559 Round Barn Blvd
Santa Rosa, CA 95403

Training Director

Jennifer Gershen, Psy.D
Consortium Director & Training Program Director
jennifer.l.gershen@kp.org


Meet the Santa Rosa Training Team

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