As a Forensic Fellow, I spend half of my time at the University Hospital and the other half at Nixon Forensic State Hospital, a state-of-the art facility opened in 2019 to replace Fulton State Hospital, the oldest public mental hospital west of the Mississippi River.
Nixon Forensic Sate Hospital has approximately 425 inpatient beds. 100 inpatient beds designated for the SORTS program (Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Services) and the remaining for psychiatry inpatient treatment. Fellows get the opportunity to treat patients who are found not guilty or unable to stand trial by reason of mental disease or defect, with underlying criminal charges and in need of a maximum-security facility for medication management and rehabilitation.
Once a week on Friday, we participate in psychopharmacology lectures lead by Dr. Greg Deardorff, Program Director for the Psychiatric Pharmacy at Fulton State Hospital and by his residents. We also participate in Psychology lectures lead by Psychology residents. During Psychopharmacology Panel meetings, we discuss treatment resistant patients before they are deemed permanently incompetent at Nixon Forensic State Hospital, and during our Central Psychopharmacology Panel, which takes place every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, we talk about treatment resistant patients from seven other State Hospitals in Missouri. At the University Hospital, we work along Dr. Kingston, Forensic Fellowship Program Director, and perform Forensic reports, Fitness for Duty reports, Competency evaluations, Disability evaluations, Workers Compensation cases and Risk Assessment evaluations.
We can also participate in research projects under faculty supervision, including a pilot project with the court system at MedZou Community Health Clinic (free community clinic in Missouri for uninsured patients) where we see clients with charges who need mental health treatment via telepsych once a month on Thursday afternoons.
During didactics on Wednesday afternoons, we discuss landmark cases extracted from the 100 Landmark Cases provided by the AAPL (American Academy of Psychiatry and Law).
We are encouraged to attend the AAPL Annual Meeting during October, the Central DMH (Department of Mental Health) Conference and the Sequential Intercept Mapping Conference for Missouri. We also have the opportunity to work in a forensic setting in Illinois as an away rotation.
Our program is very flexible with its fellows' needs and provides a solid training before we venture out on our own in the real world. I highly encourage you to apply to our Forensic Fellowship Program!
- Sailaja Bysani, MD
