Postdoctoral Fellowship in Health Service Psychology

We train based on board certification standards with strong emphasis on clinical practice. Our graduates take up exciting positions throughout the country where their experience at JHS makes them exceptional leaders with depth experience treating underserved populations in a publically-funded hospital setting. We are one of only a handful of training institutions that have three APA-accredited specialties for fellowship training: 1) Clinical Neuropsychology, 2) Clinical Health Psychology, and Clinical Child Psychology – Pediatric Behavioral Medicine.

As a premier internship training site for over 30 years, we have grown and diversified such that we have APA-accredited programs for interns and fellows. In cooperation with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, we train in Jackson Behavioral Health Hospital, Jackson Main, Ryder Trauma Center, the Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center, and Holtz Children’s Hospital. This allows an extraordinary breadth of experiences from brain-cuttings in Neuropsychology, to state of the art treatments and equipment in the Rehabilitation Center, close consultation with medical teams in all settings, with a strong commitment to science, ethics and diversity. Our training is rigorous and comprehensive; because we have three APA-accredited fellowship programs, graduates can apply for Board Certification in the first year after graduating. Our graduates have done very well and are very competitive – beginning careers in university settings, public and private hospitals, and private practice, teaching, supervising, and spreading the Jackson focus on underserved populations.

The Department of Psychology of the Jackson Health System, in affiliation with the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine offers a Multi-Specialty Postdoctoral Fellowship Training Program in Health Service Psychology that emphasizes advanced evidenced-based education and clinical training to prepare psychology postdoctoral fellows to work independently in their specialty areas. We are pleased to announce that as of April 2022, the Clinical Health Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship program was awarded full APA-Accreditation. In addition, the Clinical Neuropsychology program was awarded APA Accreditation on Contingency on July 2019 and on April 2020, the Clinical Child Psychology- Pediatric Behavioral Medicine specialty practice was also honored with APA-Accreditation, on Contingency

*Questions related to the program’s accredited status should be directed to the Commission on Accreditation:
Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
American Psychological Association
750 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002
Phone: (202) 336-5979 / E-mail: apaaccred@apa.org
Web: accreditation.apa.org

The Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is committed to promote expertise in cultural and individual diversity by recruiting faculty from different cultural backgrounds and by providing the postdoctoral fellows with theoretical instruction, experiential training, and exposure to populations that are diverse in areas of age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, national origin, language, level of education and social economic status. The fellowship training embraces an integrated approach (Scientist/Practitioner/Scholar) by encouraging learning, clinical practice, application of scholarly findings, and conduction of research. All postdoctoral fellows are assessed on their clinical competence, research abilities and supervision skills prior to admission to the program. Training is developed to advance competencies by capitalizing on strengths and to successfully integrate the knowledge and skills in the specialty area in a systematic, hierarchical manner in order to become independent professionals in their particular area of specialization.

The program provides advanced clinical and didactic training and the opportunity for the postdoctoral fellows to become analytical and critical consumers of current theory and practice in the field. Specifically, this is accomplished through the constant interplay of clinical practices and scholarship activities that include grand rounds and seminars, as well as specific didactics and clinical interventions accordingly to the specific areas of specialty. Additionally, the program offers postdoctoral fellows a broad exposure to training across diverse cultural and ethnic populations, a spectrum from acute emergency to outpatient care and a body of faculty with different theoretical perspectives and expertise and the opportunity to work across interdisciplinary lines.

Finally, postdoctoral fellows may elect to participate in research opportunities within the JHS Department of Psychology or with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. Postdoctoral fellows are always encouraged to develop and implement their own research designs or conduct collaborative research with other disciplines within the medical center community. Postdoctoral fellows who elect this rotation will be required to participate four hours per week, in addition to their clinical responsibilities, for a minimum of three months. Additional three-month rotations can be considered at the discretion of the research coordinator, principal investigator and clinical supervisor.

The training philosophy and goals of the Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in the Department of Psychology are consistent with the philosophy, mission and goals of both Jackson Health System and the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine and are modelled on specialty specific board certification requirements.