Hackensack Meridian Health Jersey Shore University Medical Center (JSUMC), located in Neptune, NJ, is a not-for-profit healthcare facility. The Department of Psychiatry of JSUMC, in conjunction with Hackensack Meridian Health, offers a one-year, full-time (1750 hours) internship in Health Service Psychology. The internship provides an individually tailored sequence of training experiences with the primary focus being on assuring breadth and quality of training. Interns' experience at JSUMC involves a broad range of supervised clinical work with patients across the lifespan in both inpatient and outpatient settings and throughout the medical facility and its affiliate settings. Patients seen within the JSUMC system are from diverse cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds and present with a broad range of diagnoses, mental health concerns, medical needs, and a variety of clinical needs. Interns gain experience providing a variety of clinical services and treatment modalities in a medical setting and acquire assessment experience using a range of assessment tools.
The internship training program at Jersey Shore University Medical Center offers a total of 5 full-time intern positions: 3 positions for the General Psychology Track and 2 positions for the Neuropsychology Track. The Internship Program at JSUMC provides interns with generalist training in order to prepare them for entry level clinical practice in a wide variety of clinical settings. The Internship Program follows the practitioner-scholar training model, characterized by intensive clinical experience supported by didactic programming and supervision that exposes interns to current research and literature relevant to their clinical work. As such, interns are encouraged to integrate clinical practice and science by utilizing clinical research and theory to guide clinical decisions. The program provides interns with a broad continuum of clinical training opportunities, including assessment, evaluation, consultation, and direct treatment in multidisciplinary, culturally diverse settings. The intern experience is designed to build upon previously acquired competencies and to facilitate the development of new clinical and professional skills while fostering a sense of professional identity.
In the Neuropsychology Track, interns will have the unique opportunity to work directly with fellowship-trained neuropsychologists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, rehabilitation specialists, and other trainees, including practicum students, residents, and fellows. Through this experience, interns will gain extensive training in neuropsychological assessment and consultation, learning to administer, score, and interpret a variety of standardized neuropsychological measures. Formal didactic training in neuropsychological testing and cognitive neuroscience complements hands-on clinical experience. An intern’s clinical training and experience includes neuropsychological assessment, report writing, and feedback delivery; consultation in multidisciplinary team conferences supporting the brain tumor, deep brain stimulation (DBS), and epilepsy; exposure to both outpatient and inpatient services, including rehabilitation care; supervised experience with diverse neurological conditions referred from neurology, neurosurgery, and physical medicine and rehabilitation; and participation in neuroscience grand rounds, journal club, neuroanatomy lectures, and case conferences.
In the General Track, the Internship Program consists of required and elective components, and it is organized into two six-month rotations (Child/Adolescent and Adult). Mid-year interns will switch major rotations, giving each intern the exposure to clinical experiences across the lifespan. This also provides interns an opportunity for a varied training experience and exposure to multiple supervisors. In addition to the primary rotation, each intern chooses a minor rotation, or “elective,” where they spend the equivalent of one day per week.
