Meetings in the Internship Setting

Abstract

Clinical psychology interns participate in a rich variety of administrative, clinical, and educational meetings. These usually are designed to improve the administrative operations of a clinical facility or to enhance the quality of clinical care and training. Many meetings become integral components of the internship training program, are woven into the trainee’s day-to-day activities, and are held on a regularly scheduled basis (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly). Others may be called as the occasion demands. Whatever the case, interns typically find that meetings occupy more of their time than, and are just as important as, direct patient care. This chapter is intended to provide the reader with a general review of the various types of meetings in which interns are likely to participate. Since the majority of internships in clinical psychology (more than 80%) are in medical-hospital settings, this chapter uses the meetings held in these settings as a general model for those that occur in all settings. These meetings, or variants of them, are also held in many nonmedical-hospital settings (e.g., university counseling centers, schools, forensic centers etc., see Chapter 3), although they may differ somewhat in name, content, or form. Other specialized meetings may be held in nonmedical-hospital settings. These are not described here because they often are highly specific to the settings in which they occur. For example, an intern in a correctional facility may never attend a formal grand rounds presentation, but will attend “warden’s meetings” or “ward manager’s meetings.”