Elaine – First-Year Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Resident (CAP-1) – Weill Cornell

Hi! I’m Elaine, a CAP-1 fellow currently rotating at NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP)/Weill Cornell Medicine. Welcome to a day in my life at the Adolescent Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)! In the morning, I typically go to the cafeteria to grab breakfast before rounds start at 9:15am. One of the best perks at NYP is having meal credit with very good deals at the cafeteria and an excellent selection of food. We start the day with interdisciplinary rounds with our social workers, psychologists, attending, co-fellows, and other staff. The best part of rounds is being able to conceptualize different aspects of patient care with the expertise from everybody’s areas of specialty.

Throughout the day, we meet with our patients for individual therapy sessions, conduct treatment planning in family meetings, and run group therapy. We receive supervision from the psychology team to learn how to effectively run group therapy, which has been a great skill to develop. Depending on the day, we also have didactics in a variety of topics including infant psychiatry, family therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)/Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). One of my favorite parts of PHP is learning from our psychologists on how to do exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy in the specialized OCD track. It's been incredibly fulfilling seeing the patients and families make progress throughout their time here.

I usually get home around 4-5pm which leaves ample free time for relaxation. After work, I enjoy wandering around the city and finding delicious baked goods – I highly recommend Levain cookies and various bakeries in Chinatown.