The State University of New York Downstate Medical Center is one of the largest health science centers in the United States. It is the largest of the four health science centers within the SUNY system and part of the largest multi-level system of public higher education in the nation. SUNY/DOWNSTATE is rooted in a century-old tradition of teaching, patient care and research. Originally founded in 1860, in 1950 it was chosen as the core for the development of a SUNY Health Science Center in the New York metropolitan area. Today our facility is the major center for academic medicine in Brooklyn. It consists of the seventh largest medical college in the nation, with schools of nursing, health related professions and graduate studies. Its 362 bed tertiary care facility, University Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB), serves as a nucleus of the Center's academic life, while Kings County Hospital Center (KCHC), an 887-bed hospital, serves as its primary teaching site. KCHC is the second largest facility in New York City's network of municipal hospitals, and the third largest municipal hospital center in the nation. It serves a large segment of Brooklyn's 2.5 million population, receiving over 34,000 inpatient admissions and 760,000 ambulatory visits annually. In addition to the medical college, voluntary hospital and municipal hospital center, SUNY/DOWNSTATE also has Veterans Administration Hospital (the Brooklyn VA Hospital) and St.John’s Episcopal Far Rockway as its affiliates.

Residency training in psychiatry at SUNY-DOWNSTATE/KCHC is comprised of four distinct programs: The basic Residency Training Program in Psychiatry, the Combined Residency Training Program in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry, the Residency Training in Psychiatry: Research Track, and the Combined Residency Training Program in Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry.

• The Residency Training Program in Psychiatry is a four-year, fully accredited educational program for qualified applicants who aspire to train in the field of general psychiatry. The program currently has 32 residents enrolled for the 2000-01 academic year; an average of eight residents enter into the training program at the postgraduate year-1 (PGY-1) level and continue training for each of the three successive post-graduate years. Upon successful completion of the program, the resident becomes eligible to sit for the certification examination in Psychiatry given by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. The program is an eclectic one, combining neurobiological, social, psychoanalytic, and other theoretical approaches to the study of psychiatry.

• The Combined Residency Training Program in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry was established in 1980 and was updated in 1993 to our current program, which is a five-year training program inclusive of both Internal Medicine and Psychiatry in each year. Residents who successfully complete the program are eligible to sit for certification examinations in both Psychiatry and Internal Medicine. It currently has two residents enrolled for the 2000-01 academic year. The program is designed to train physicians who will become proficient in both clinical medicine and psychiatry, and who will be able to understand and treat clinical problems occurring at the interface of these two disciplines.

• The Research Track Residency Training Program is an ACGME approved program geared towards training those individuals who plan to specialize in academic psychiatry and aspire to a career in research.

• The Combined Program in Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry offers a coordinated child and adult curriculum to candidates entering at the PGY-1 level of training with a specific interest in Child and Adolescent psychiatry. It is a five-year program, the first three years concentrating on Adult Psychiatry and the following two years providing comprehensive training in the field of Child and Adolescent psychiatry. Residents who successfully complete this program are able to function independently as child and adolescent psychiatrists, and as consultants to pediatricians, schools, the court system, community agencies and interdisciplinary teams, and they become eligible to sit for the certification examinations in Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry. For the academic year 2000-01 there are six Child Fellows enrolled in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program at either the PGY-4, PGY-5 or PGY-6 levels. We also have two Community Psychiatry Fellows, three Geriatric Fellows, and two Advanced Child Fellows, bringing the total number of House Staff officers in our Department to 45.

Over the past five years, 37 residents have graduated from the SUNY-DOWNSTATE/KCHC Residency Training Program in Psychiatry. Most of our graduates have remained in administrative, clinical or research positions in public institutions. Many have chosen to continue their post-graduate education or to work in the private sector. Our dual commitment to train well-rounded, sophisticated clinicians and to provide high quality treatment for patients in underserved areas of Brooklyn has, we believe, resulted in an exciting educational experience for our residents and faculty, and in our graduates making valuable contributions to academic psychiatry and the communities we serve.

In order to complete the Residency Training Program in Psychiatry successfully, the resident must demonstrate competency in the major areas of General Psychiatry. Each resident's progress is evaluated by the Evaluation and Promotion Committee twice a year. Based on formal and informal evaluations in clinical rotations and didactic courses, the Committee decides whether the resident has met the objective for each postgraduate year and is, therefore, ready to be promoted to the next year or graduated from the program. An outline of the curriculum is provided in this document is provided in a chapter titled "Curriculum".