Sharp HealthCare's APA-accredited Psychology Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology provides psychologists-in-training with a yearlong, in-depth training experience.
Core faculty members are listed below. They include primary rotation supervisors, seminar/didactic leaders, supplemental supervisors, and the training director. Core faculty are subject to change to meet the needs of the training program.
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2022)
Internship: Sharp HealthCare
Fellowship: Sharp HealthCare - Sharp McDonald Center
Areas of Interest: geropsychology, SMI, systems of care, community psychology
Areas of interest: child and adolescent mental health, psychological assessment, acute care, family behavior therapy, treatment of substance use disorders, complex trauma
Orientation: cognitive-behavioral, ACT
Argosy University, San Francisco Bay Area
Internship: UC Davis Medical Center, Neuropsychology & Rehabilitation Psychology Program
Fellowship: Fullerton Neuropsychological Services and St. Jude Medical Center, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Areas of interest: neuropsychology, psychodiagnostic assessment of adults and older adults, clinical training and supervision, behavioral health research
Internship: University of San Diego Child and Adolescent Program
Fellowship: clinical psychology with emphasis in child and adolescent psychology, Sharp HealthCare
Areas of interest: child, adolescent and family systems; leadership in behavioral health settings, clinical program development, measurement-based care
Orientation: cognitive-behavioral
Palo Alto University (2017)
Internship: Sharp HealthCare
Fellowship: Sharp HealthCare, Cog/DBT IOP
Areas of Interest: child/adolescent, TAY, DBT
Orientation: behavioral/cognitive-behavioral
The Chicago Medical School (1997)
Residency: Department of Psychiatry, Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of California Davis, Medical Center
Board certification: American Board of Family Practice, Candidate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
Areas of interest: adult psychiatry, consultation and liaison psychiatry, telemedicine, emergency psychiatry
Alliant International University, San Diego (2017)
Internship: Alvarado Parkway Institute
Areas of interest: OCD, SMI, Psychopharmacology
Orientation: Brief Psychodynamic, CBT, ERP
Medical school: University of Damascus, Syria
Residency: University of Missouri, Kansas City
Board certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (Psychiatry), American Board of Addiction Medicine
Areas of interest: addiction disorders, electronic medical records impact on healthcare delivery, physician burnout and wellness
PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium (2019)
Internship: Sharp HealthCare
Fellowship: San Diego Center for Children, Behavioral Health Assessment/Residential
Areas of Interest: autism and neurodevelopmental disabilities, DBT, psychological assessment of children/adolescents, TAY
Orientation: behavioral/cognitive-behavioral
Wright Institute, Berkeley (2010)
Internship: Sharp HealthCare
Fellowship: clinical psychology with an emphasis in geropsychology, Sharp HealthCare
Areas of interest: geropsychology, program development, leadership
Orientation: cognitive-behavioral/integrative
UC Santa Barbara (2015)
Internship: College of William and Mary Counseling Center
Fellowship: UC San Diego Counseling Center — urgent care emphasis
Areas of Interest: trauma, post-traumatic growth, positive psychology, clinical supervision, mindfulness, suicide prevention, disaster mental health, multicultural counseling/competence
Orientation: cognitive-behavioral
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (2008)
Internship: Child and Family Guidance Center, Northridge, California
Areas of interest: children, adolescents, family systems, trauma and abuse, psycho-diagnostic evaluations, community outreach, clinical supervision, anti-racism
Orientation: cognitive-behavioral, systems
Alliant International University, CSPP San Diego (2017)
Internship: Sharp HealthCare
Fellowship: Child and Family Guidance Center, Northridge, California
Areas of interest: severe mental illness, Recovery Model, trauma-informed care, clinical training and supervision
Orientation: ACT, CBT
In addition to the core faculty listed above, invited psychologists, physicians and other professionals from Sharp and the greater San Diego community play important roles in our training programs. Professionals from UCSD, Alliant, SDSU, Children's Hospital, the County of San Diego, Kaiser Permanente, Psychiatric Centers of San Diego and other organizations contribute to our weekly seminar series, provide professional consultation and partner with us in providing patient care.
Doctoral internship supervision and didactics
The doctoral internship in clinical psychology at Sharp HealthCare follows a practitioner-scholar model of training, interns meet routinely with supervisors on every rotation, and in most rotations they have daily contact with supervisors, working side-by-side with them in the provision of clinical service, staff training and program development.
Interns' progress through the training year is sequential, cumulative and graded in complexity. Interns typically begin a rotation by observing their supervisor providing service, progress to co-facilitation, are then observed, and finally facilitate group independently. Skills and knowledge developed in each rotation build on previous training experiences.
While much of the supervision received by an intern occurs during the day in informal ways, we schedule formal supervision as follows:
Interns receive, at a minimum, one hour of scheduled, face-to-face supervision from their rotation supervisor each week. Rotation and assessment supervisors provide an additional hour or more of supervision on a weekly basis that can include co-facilitation, direct learning, and curbside consultation. Interns work with a new supervisor on each of the rotations during the course of the year. Additionally, individual supervision is provided across the entire training year by the training director on a monthly basis. Having two different rotation supervisors provides diversity and multiple perspectives, while consistency with the training director over the course of the year provides objectivity, perspective and additional opportunities for professional development.
Approximately two hours per week are dedicated to group supervision, with another 1.5 hours of seminar. In addition to providing rich learning experiences, these group activities are a cornerstone of the lovely support and camaraderie that exists in the training program and in the psychology department.
In weekly group supervision with the training director, interns review clinical cases and read/discuss relevant theoretical and empirical literature. In addition, interns provide peer supervision and read/discuss literature on theories, models and best-practices in clinical supervision.
The adult/gero and child/adolescent psychodiagnostic assessment supervisors alternate an hour of weekly group supervision with all interns throughout the year. Early in the year interns are learning specific measures and soon progress to administering assessments and writing reports. Reports are carefully read, edited and cosigned by the psychodiagnostic supervisor. Early in the year interns rely more heavily on supervision for selection of relevant measures; however, at the end of the year are expected to be able to formulate batteries and administer measures, and write reports that require minimal, if any, editing.
Critical consciousness seminar promotes culturally competent assessment and treatment of the diverse populations served at Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital. The seminar focuses on building awareness of diversity issues in both providers and patients served. Sometimes this includes interns engaging in in an extensive cultural self-conceptualization in order to best understand the impact of their own culture on the provision of treatment. In addition, the seminar provides for intensive discussion of the many aspects of diversity necessary to become culturally competent clinicians. Diversity factors covered include age, cohort disability, religion and spirituality, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, sexuality and gender.
Interns provide supervision to second- or third-year graduate students in psychology throughout the training year. Interns also are provided supervision-of-supervision in weekly individual and/or group supervisions. During supervision of supervision, models of supervision are discussed and interns are provided support for their supervisory relationship with graduate students.
Professional development seminar: This seminar series is designed to help interns develop a sense of professional identity. Seminars are provided on professional ethics/law, cultural/individual diversity and evidence-based practices. Seminars are presented by Sharp psychologists and other providers as well as adjunct faculty from the community.
Case presentations: Interns formally present one of their patients in the traditional grand rounds style. The presentations include a description of the case, review of the literature and a discussion of how the literature has informed their clinical practice. Each intern presents two cases per year.
Interns that are in the gero-track participate in a weekly one-hour seminar where the Pikes Peak Competencies are discussed and topics relevant to geropsychological practice are reviewed. Guest speakers are often invited to share expertise. This seminar also includes graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who work on SIOP and SBU.