Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center
Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center is a JCAHO accredited 112-bed psychiatric hospital providing both emergency and acute care for adult inpatients in the Eastern Region of Missouri. Serving a large area of the state, Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center treats individuals from a highly diverse catchment area that includes rural, urban and suburban populations. While diverse backgrounds and socioeconomic levels are represented within the inpatient population, persons with less education and fewer resources are in majority. Approximately 50% of the patients represent minorities, with the majority of those individuals being African-American. Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center provides services to individuals who have been involuntarily hospitalized as well as to those independently seeking assistance through hospitalization. Admissions are typically for less than 90 days with the average length of stay being approximately 14 days.
Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center is a treatment and training institution with which Washington University’s School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry is affiliated. Psychiatry residents and medical students rotate through the inpatient service at MPC. Practica are offered to students in psychology, social work, nursing, occupational therapy, music therapy, dietetics, physician’s assistants programs and pharmacy.
The Psychology Department consists of four doctoral level psychologists with a variety of theoretical orientations and areas of interest/expertise. Interns are matched with a primary supervisor who provides the majority of the training and supervision during the rotation. Focused supervision from other staff is available for individual and group psychotherapy and on assessment cases, insuring that interns have an opportunity to draw upon the experience of various members of the staff. Interns receive a minimum of two to three hours of supervision per week, with many opportunities for informal supervision as the intern works with the psychologist on the unit. Guided readings of the professional literature relevant to inpatient services/professional development supplement supervision.
The inpatient rotation at Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center emphasizes education, diagnosis and treatment of acutely symptomatic individuals. While Axis I disorders such as the schizophrenias and affective disorders are the most frequent diagnoses, many patients also present with substance abuse and Axis II disorders, resulting in a complicated and challenging clinical picture. The psychology intern is a member of a multidisciplinary treatment team, participating in treatment and discharge planning as well as other treatment activities. A primary goal of the inpatient rotation is for the psychology intern to learn to function as a professional in this setting, both in direct care services to the patient and as a member of the treatment team. Interns also have the opportunity to attend some of the hospital’s onsite continuing education activities.