Lahey Psychiatry Residency Program

• To educate psychiatrists with solid understanding of the biological and psychosocial aspects of psychiatry, and to inspire curious life-long learners who will continue to analyze evidence-based knowledge and contribute to the creation of new knowledge.
• To promote the development of psychiatrists with the knowledge, competencies, and skills to effectively practice different aspects of the profession, including clinical, academic, and administrative roles.
• To capture Lahey Clinic’s strengths as a physician-led, multispecialty center at the forefront of the clinic model to train psychiatrists who are experts in the collaborative and inter-professional care of patients with psychiatric and medical illnesses.
• To leverage the strengths of UMass Chan-Lahey’s LEAD@Lahey medical leadership curriculum, to prepare psychiatrists who will be leaders of our field.
• To mentor psychiatrists who are compassionate, ethical, just, emotionally intelligent, and able to bring together the humanistic artistry and science of psychiatry to the care of all patients.
• To promote and sustain a safe learning and working environment that is diverse and equitable

Clinical Experience

Our setting at Lahey Hospital combined with our partnerships with outside institutions provide our trainees a rich clinical experience. We enroll 4 residents each post graduate year for a total residency size of 16 trainees. Psychiatry residents will participate in rotations at high-complexity academic medical centers, community hospitals and health centers, and Veterans Affairs hospitals. Eastern Massachusetts has a diverse population, well- suited for learning about diverse cultures. We offer a wide range of clinical exposures, from community psychiatry to refined subspecialty psychiatry including aspects of medical psychiatry, integrative health, neuropsychiatry, and neuromodulation.

View the Block Diagram

Brief Curriculum of Rotations Per Year

PGY1

• Internal Medicine
• Neurology
• Inpatient Psychiatry

PGY2

• Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
• Inpatient Psychiatry
• Geriatric Psychiatry
• Addiction Psychiatry
• Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
• Partial Hospitalization Program
• Longitudinal Ambulatory Experience (2 patients)

PGY3

• Ambulatory Psychiatry
• Sub-Specialty Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry

PGY4

• Ambulatory Psychiatry
• Collaborative Care Psychiatry
• Community Psychiatry
• Chief Residencies: Administrative, Consultation-Liaison, Education, Ambulatory
• Elective Rotations

Residents have weekly protected time for didactics and scholarly activity. Residents will engage in longitudinal scholarly activities including a Quality & Improvement Project, a Capstone Project, and a Psychiatry Leadership project.

In addition to the didactics listed below for each year, residents may attend Lahey Psychiatry Grand Rounds, Psychiatry Quality and Safety Rounds, Psychiatry Ethics Rounds, Lahey Neuropsychiatry CME Conference, Leadership conferences, and Journal Club and Case Conferences, among other educational opportunities.

Of note, the list of didactics below includes general titles. Within each session, the content will be customized for each year, accompanying the clinical experiences of each training year and the gradual development of expertise of the class. For instance, depending on the year, what we list here as clinical psychiatry will include addiction psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, community psychiatry, and others.

PGY1

• Introduction to Clinical Psychiatry
• Emergency Psychiatry
• Introduction to Psychopharmacology
• Introduction to Clinical Skills
• Introduction to Psychotherapy

PGY2

• Clinical Psychiatry
• Psychopharmacology
• Clinical Skills
• Psychotherapy
• Clinical Neurosciences

PGY3

• Clinical Psychiatry
• Psychopharmacology
• Clinical Skills
• Psychotherapy
• Careers in Psychiatry
• Models of the Mind

PGY4

• Clinical Psychiatry
• Healthcare Systems and Advocacy
• Psychopharmacology
• Clinical Skills
• Psychotherapy
• Transitions to Practice

Meet the Leadership

Patrick R. Aquino, MD, Division Chair

Dr. Patrick Aquino is the Chair of the Division of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine for Lahey Hospital & Medical Center. As Medical Director for Behavioral Health Integration for Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services, he leads Beth Israel Lahey Health’s initiative to integrate behavioral health (Collaborative Care) across its network of primary care practices. He is board certified in General Psychiatry and Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and completed a fellowship in Medical Education at Harvard Medical School. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UMass Chan-Lahey in the TH Chan School of Medicine at the UMass Chan Medical School. His research interests include evaluating care delivery models, integrating technology in health care, and investigating psychiatric illness in medical disease. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Fellow of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Laura Safar, MD, Program Director

Dr. Laura T. Safar is the Vice Chair of Psychiatry at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is board- certified in General Psychiatry, Neuropsychiatry, and Consultation- Liaison Psychiatry. She is a clinical and educational leader in Neuropsychiatry, and is passionate about teaching psychiatry to the next generation. She is coeditor of the textbook “Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurology: Principles and Practice”, and co-director of the Harvard CME Course “Neuropsychiatry: A Comprehensive Update.” She is the Director of Lahey’s Psychiatry Residency Training Program, and Lahey’s Fellowship in Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry. Her research interests include the neuropsychiatry of Multiple Sclerosis, and the effectiveness and quality of psychiatric care. Dr. Safar is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Our Faculty

Our core faculty at Lahey Psychiatry and Behavioral Health consists of an interdisciplinary group of academic clinicians with substantial experience educating and training medical students, psychiatry residents and fellows. Our faculty members hold academic appointments at UMass Chan Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine, and Harvard Medical School. Many of our faculty members have received Excellence in Teaching awards. In addition to their mastery of general psychiatry, our psychiatrists have subspecialty expertise in consultation- liaison psychiatry, collaborative psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, transplant- psychiatry, and addiction psychiatry.

Inter-professional care and education is a cornerstone of the culture and practice at Lahey. Residents benefit from the clinical and teaching skillfulness of our psychologists, advanced practitioners, and social workers.  Our psychologists have expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, trauma- informed care, and several subspecialties of health psychology including psycho-oncology, medical weight loss and bariatric surgery, sleep medicine, transgender health, transplant, and other. In addition to their clinical and teaching prowess, our advanced practitioners are valued members of practice improvement committees and initiatives in psychiatry and the hospital at large. Our social workers provide individual and group psychotherapy – we count with an extensive Group Psychotherapy portfolio – and consultations for various subspecialties. Our PERC (Psychiatry Emergency Resource Clinicians) team collaborates closely with our Emergency Department.

The Learning Environment- other Training Programs at Lahey

Residents benefit from their interaction with trainees from other Lahey residency and fellowship programs. Within the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Division, our other training programs include: Psychology Post-Doctoral Fellowship; Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry Fellowship; UMass Chan Psychiatry Clerkship; Nurse Practitioner Fellowship; Social Work and Mental Counseling Internships; elective rotation in neuropsychiatry for psychiatry residents.

External faculty

We are excited about our partnership with expert faculty from Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services; Veteran Administration Boston Healthcare System; BayRidge Hospital; Beverly Hospital; Addison Gilbert Hospital; Cape Cod Hospital; Center for Health Aging. Their areas of expertise include addiction psychiatry; community psychiatry; neuromodulation; inpatient psychiatry; geriatric psychiatry; child and adolescent psychiatry.

Learn more about the Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine team here

Lahey Hospital & Medical Center

This is the main site for the Program. Didactics, rotations, and other educational experiences (supervision; grand rounds; leadership training; etc.) take place at this site.

Required rotations: Medicine; Neurology; Consultation-Liaison (CL) Psychiatry; Emergency Psychiatry; Ambulatory Psychiatry; Collaborative Care Model Psychiatry; PGY4 Chiefship (options: administrative; outpatient; CL; educational).

Elective rotations include: Sub-specialty CL and Ambulatory Psychiatry. Examples: psycho-oncology; transplant psychiatry; bariatrics; transgender health; ICU CL psychiatry; neurocritical care CL psychiatry; addiction CL psychiatry.

Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services (BILH-BS)

BILH-BS is a large network of community-based mental health and addiction services. They offer integrated mental health care for adults and seniors, children, adolescents and families. Their services include: Addiction and recovery services; individual counseling and group therapy; psychiatric assessments and medication services; family services; home and school-based programs for teens and adolescents; mobile crisis teams for behavioral health and substance-related emergencies.

Rotations at this network: Addiction Psychiatry; Child & Adolescent Psychiatry; Community Psychiatry; additional site for Ambulatory Psychiatry.

Veteran Administration (VA) Boston Healthcare System

The Boston VA counts with a strong tradition of training psychiatry residents in the Boston area. Rotations here include: Inpatient Psychiatry; Neuromodulation; CL Psychiatry.

Beverly Hospital, BayRidge Hospital, Addison Gilbert Hospital, & Center for Healthy Aging.

These institutions are part of the Northeast Health Corporation. Together, they provide highly coordinated care to individuals suffering from psychiatric illness.

Beverly Hospital is a 227-bed acute care hospital and Level III Trauma Center. It counts with an 18-bed adult inpatient psychiatric unit providing specialized care for patients with psychiatric disorders and concurrent medical conditions. Beverly Hospital also offers inpatient and outpatient ECT service.

Rotations at this site: Inpatient Psychiatry; ECT.

BayRidge Hospital is a community psychiatric hospital providing high quality psychiatric and substance use treatment. It counts with two main inpatient psychiatric units and more than 50 psychiatric beds. Rotations at this site: Inpatient Psychiatry

Addison Gilbert Hospital (AGH) is a medical acute care facility. Their Senior Adult Unit provides inpatient geriatric psychiatry care to the elderly with psychiatric disorders and concurrent medical disorders. Rotations at this site: Geriatric Psychiatry (inpatient).

The Center for Healthy Aging is a multi-disciplinary outpatient clinic that provides geriatric psychiatry and geriatric medicine care, as well as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) treatment.

Rotations at this site: Geriatric Psychiatry (outpatient); Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).

Cape Cod Hospital (CCH)

CCH is a general community hospital with its main location in Hyannis, MA.  Their psychiatric services include: ED Psychiatric Observation Service; Cape Psychiatric Center: a 20 bed inpatient unit; CL Psychiatry Service; Partial Hospital Program; Center for Behavioral Health: Outpatient psychiatric services, including child and adolescent psychiatry.

The psychiatry team at CCH provides a supportive and rigorous learning environment. Given the distance from Lahey Hospital, residents will have the opportunity to reside in Hyannis during their rotation. The hospital provides free housing, in the form of private apartments located across the street from the hospital.

Rotations at this site: Inpatient psychiatry; emergency psychiatry; Partial Hospital Program; Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Our Psychiatry Residency utilizes exclusively the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) System for application purposes. We will not review applications submitted in other ways.

Application requirements include: Completed ERAS application; Dean’s letter; medical school transcript; three letters of reference; personal statement; USMLE Steps 1, 2-CK, 2-CS prior to start of the residency, and USMLE Step 3 (if taken).

We conduct all interviews virtually. Our Residency participates in the National Resident Matching Program.

Laura T. Safar, MD
Program Director
Lahey Hospital & Medical Center
41 Mall Road
Burlington, MA 01805
781-744-8013

Any inquires can be directed to:

Casey Richer
Program Coordinator
Lahey Hospital & Medical Center
41 Mall Road
Burlington, MA 01805
781-744-5569
Email Casey Richer

International Medical Graduate Applications

Lahey Hospital & Medical Center sponsors only J-1 visas for international medical graduates. You must apply through ERAS.  You must have a valid ECFMG certificate to be eligible for graduate medical training at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center.

Competitive applicants will have graduated from medical school within the last 5 years. However, we do not have a strict cut off for number of years since graduating from medical school. Your letters of recommendation should include letters from US clinical rotations. Strong preference is given to applicants who have secured meaningful hands-on clinical experiences in the US health system.