Naval Medical Center San Diego Psychology Internship

NMCSD Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology:

Overall Training Aims:

Competencies:

Major Rotations:

Adult Outpatient Rotation:

Health Psychology Rotation:

Mental Health Operational Outreach Division:  

During this operational rotation the intern works at the Mental Health Operational Outreach Division (MHOOD) at the Naval Station San Diego.  The MHOOD Clinic primarily serves active duty Navy personnel, and provides psychology-related consultation with those sailors’ military commands.  Psychological services typically include interview assessment and brief psychotherapy.  Much of the focus of this rotation is learning to assess mental health fitness and suitability for military duties and consulting with patients’ military commands regarding those assessments, both key components of the day-to-day work of military psychologists.  A unique opportunity is the chance to work directly with Navy psychiatrists who are embedded with Navy Fleet Surgical Teams; this gives interns the opportunity to learn a great deal about mental health issues on board Navy ships and about consultation with seagoing Navy commands.  This clinic represents quite well the type of outpatient clinic associated with a Navy Fleet port, in which a Navy psychologist is likely to work in a first post-internship assignment.  The rotation emphasizes development of competence in mental health consultation with Navy Fleet commands and is supervised by a licensed psychologist.

Marine Corps Mental Health:  

During this operational rotation the intern works at the Mental Health Clinic, Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego.  This clinic primarily serves active duty Marine Corps service members.  This rotation involves brief assessments of Marine Corps recruits experiencing psychological difficulty in adjusting to Marine Corps boot camp.  It also involves a significant amount of assessment and treatment of Marine Corps members on staff at MCRD who are struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other psychological issues subsequent to (often multiple) combat deployments. The rotation emphasizes development of competence in mental health consultation with Marine Corps commands.  
 
In both of these operational rotations, the intern will learn or refine skills for rapid evaluation of patients referred from a large number of sources with a wide variety of presenting problems.  The intern may follow patients in brief interventions, refer patients to appropriate military or civilian resources, or recommend active duty patients for discharge from the military.  Part of the challenge of these operational rotations is learning to handle a steady case load, utilize available resources, and communicate and consult effectively with Navy and Marine Corps units (the “organizational customer”) without becoming overwhelmed by the clinical pace and competing demands on time.  Interns also will engage in outpatient psychotherapy groups, and will be involved in crisis intervention.  Multidisciplinary teamwork is available and encouraged. Licensed military and civilian faculty psychologists practicing in the Operational Mental Health Clinics provide direct supervision of interns.

Inpatient Mental Health/Emergency Mental Health Rotation:  

During this rotation, interns become competent with the admission, diagnosis, treatment and disposition of patients with severe mental health disorders of such severity as to require emergency evaluation and, often, hospitalization.  Interns split their time between the Inpatient Service and the Emergency Mental Health Service. The intern is part of a multidisciplinary treatment team (comprised of staff psychiatrists and psychologists, psychiatric residents, nurses, social workers, social work fellows, and hospital corps staff) and is immediately responsible for patient care to the credentialed staff psychiatrists who head the Inpatient and Emergency Mental Health teams.  The attending psychiatrists hold clinical privileges and final responsibility to make ultimate admission and discharge decisions for mental health patients.  The staff psychiatrists leading the intern’s treatment teams provide daily supervision of the intern’s inpatient or emergency evaluation caseloads.  The credentialed staff psychologist on the Inpatient and Emergency Mental Health Services provides administrative and oversight supervision, meeting directly with the intern for weekly supervision throughout the rotation.  

Interns on this rotation may provide psychological testing for psychiatric inpatients, specific to consults from the Inpatient multidisciplinary treatment teams.  Testing is supervised by the Inpatient staff psychologist.  During this rotation (and twice following completion of the rotation), the intern will stand the weekend day in-house mental health watch, once every other week, with the psychiatry resident on call and the assigned medical students.  During these watches, the intern will work with the resident in responding to psychiatric emergencies in the medical center’s Emergency Department, on the inpatient psychiatric wards, and elsewhere in the hospital.  Supervision of on-call responsibilities rests with the Mental Health Department psychiatrist on call.  

This training experience involves close multidisciplinary collaboration with psychiatrists, psychiatry residents, social workers, and social work fellows, as well as extensive consultation to physicians and physicians-in-training from multiple disciplines outside Mental Health.  It additionally may offer the interns opportunities to provide training and basic supervision to multidisciplinary trainees including psychiatry interns, physician assistant students, and students training to become Independent Duty Corpsmen.  

This rotation is the most demanding of the intern's time and requires the learning and completion of many processes and much formal paperwork within short periods of time.

Trans-Rotational Clinical Experiences:

Additional NMCSD Opportunities:

Didactics:

A program of regularly scheduled seminars and other workshop presentations accompanies the intensive direct supervision inherent in the five clinical rotations.  These didactics are designed to expose the intern to contemporary information and training relevant to effective functioning as a psychologist, with special reference to the social, vocational and special risks of the Navy and Marine Corps subcultures.  The faculty, the presenter, and the level of interest of the attendees determine the particular format for a topic and the amount of time devoted to it. The presenters of these didactic programs frequently are distinguished colleagues from the Navy and civilian clinical/academic communities.  Didactics include weekly Intern Seminars, weekly Directors’ Rounds case discussions, bi-weekly Mental Health Grand Rounds, bi-weekly Journal Club discussions, and periodic special training opportunities lasting a full day or longer.  

Interns also participate in a Supervision of Supervision course intended to teach fundamentals of clinical supervision and to allow time for practicing the skill via guided role play.  Additionally, over the course of the year, interns take on increasing responsibility for tiered supervision within their cohort or with behavioral health technicians working alongside them on the various rotations.  

Operational Experiences:

Supervision:

• Deadline for submitting APPIs: 10 November 2025
• Deadline for completing Navy commissioning application: 1 December 2025
• Application interviews will be conducted between 18 to 20 November 2025. These interviews will be virtual.
• Interviewees are invited to tour the NMCSD campus in-person during the optional Open House on 21 November 2025.  If interested in attending this open house, interviewees should contact the National Director via the email listed below. However, we want to make clear that whether or not an applicant chooses to visit in person will not be a factor in the selection process.