News Release

Dual trained doctors treat mind and body together

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Rush University Medical Center

An estimated 15 percent of all people with medical problems also have a serious psychiatric problem, yet physicians without specialized psychiatric training are treating 90 percent of those problems.

To better treat these individuals, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center offers a five-year dual program that trains and certifies physicians in a unique blend of internal medicine and psychiatry. Upon completion of the dual residency program, they will be able to practice both internal medicine and psychiatry after receiving board certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Since its inception in 1996 Rush's program, one of only 16 dual residency programs in the country that trains and certifies physicians in both psychiatry and internal medicine, has grown to the largest program in the U.S. and now claims one-quarter of all medicine-psychiatry residents in the country. It was started by Dr. Stephanie Cavanaugh, professor of psychiatry, chief of the section of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center and Dr. Richard Abraham, co-director of the Internal Medicine-Psychiatry Residency and associate director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program.

New research is showing the importance of integrated care. For example, patients with cardiovascular disease who are also depressed are more likely to have complications and die from cardiovascular events, underscoring he link between medical and psychiatric illness. The sixty-year old man who suffers a heart attack and subsequently becomes depressed, benefits from being treated by a physician who understands that one in three patients develops a serious depression sometime in the twelve months after the attack.

"Western medicine tends to dichotomize the mind and the body by directing patients to separate specialists for each problem. The boundary between the mind and body is artificial, it only makes sense to treat them as one entity," said Dr. Mary Tibbetts, chief resident and the first person to enter the program.

Graduates will serve the community in a wide variety of practice settings. Examples include integrating care in a primary care setting, as well as comprehensive care for the chronically mentally ill, whose medical treatment is frequently neglected. Residents are also well trained in the traditional university tertiary model, where specialty care and research focus on the interface of medicine and psychiatry, according to Cavanaugh.

"Through research, education of colleagues and students, development of unique intervention programs, and most importantly throughout everyday practices, these physicians will be able to not just diagnose and treat physical and mental illnesses, but improve the quality of their patients' lives," said Cavanaugh.

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Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center includes the 809-bed Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital; 154-bed Johnston R. Bowman Health Center for the Elderly; Rush University (Rush Medical College, College of Nursing, College of Health Sciences and Graduate College); and seven Rush Institutes providing diagnosis, treatment and research into leading health problems. The medical center is the tertiary hub of the Rush System for Health, a comprehensive healthcare system capable of serving about three million people through its outpatient facilities and seven member hospitals.


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