Piloting a Professional Development Program in Outpatient Telepsychiatry for New Graduates

Health Care Problem: Telepsychiatry has existed in various forms since the 1950s with growth in the 2000s as psychiatry found it as effective, though slightly different, than in-person care. There was widespread expansion of telepsychiatry during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the need for educational interventions to assist new residency and fellowship graduates in acclimating to the telehealth environment has grown. This poster explores a six-month professional development program, the New Graduate Development Program (NGDP), designed by the Clinician Engagement Team, consisting of the Program Director—Clinician Engagement, the Director and Associate Director of Clinical Education, the Continuing Medical Education Specialist, and the Clinician Engagement Associate, to help psychiatrists joining our practice in their first post-residency or post-fellowship position to acclimate both to independent practice and to the telepsychiatry setting. This program was developed in response to a 10-fold increase in hiring of new graduates in 2022 compared to 2021 (87 in 2023 compared to eight in 2023), verbal feedback from past recent graduates who joined our practice directly out of training, and an interest survey of potential participants conducted in early 2022.  At the conclusion of the program, an anonymous retrospective pre-/post-survey was sent after the program concluded to evaluate the efficacy of each component of the program on a five-point Likert scale and through a Net Promoter Score (NPS). The expectation was that this program would help participants acclimate to our practice and to independent practice and improve participants’ competence and skills in telepsychiatry and performance as a new psychiatrist.

Educational Strategy: The Clinician Engagement Team met throughout the spring of 2022 to identify topics, formats, and internal stakeholders who could help us achieve our expected outcome. Our pilot NGDP ran virtually and comprised:

• New Graduate Advisory Sessions: Our Associate Director of Clinical Education participated in question-and-answer sessions during provider orientations and was familiar with the types of questions new providers routinely asked when starting with our practice. Weekly drop-in sessions established a space for continued questions of similar nature while fostering community among the cohort of new graduates.


• New Graduate Education Series: Seven lecture-based discussion sessions geared toward psychiatrists entering independent practice in the telepsychiatry setting were developed that covered topics such as determining whether patients were a good fit for care in the telepsychiatry setting and coping with online reviews.


• Board Preparation Sessions: Our Director of Clinical Education has many years of experience preparing residents for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Board Exams and developed half-day small-group sessions focused on discuss-based review of board questions and vignettes to supplement participants’ independent preparation plans for the Board exam.


• New Graduate Navigators (flash mentorship): We assembled a group of seasoned psychiatrists with varying levels of experience and areas of expertise available for discussions and one-time meetings with new graduates.

Due to the timing of planning, we were unable to implement a survey prior to the start of the program, so the team decided that a retrospective pre-/post-survey would be the most appropriate method to receive feedback and evaluate the NGDP.

Patient-Level Outcome(s) Measured: Twenty-three percent of the new graduates who participated in the NGDP completed the retrospective survey. After participating in the program, 94.40% of respondents indicated that the program helped them acclimate to our practice, prepared them for independent practice, and enhanced their competence in telepsychiatry. Overall, 82.35% of these respondents agreed that the program improved their performance as a new psychiatrist.
The NGDP helped participants acclimate to our telepsychiatry practice and to independent practice and improved their competence and skills in telepsychiatry and performance as a new psychiatrist; however, some revisions to our approach are needed for future iterations of the program.