Resident Expectations

Once a week residents will attend didactics covering a variety of clinically relevant topics, which may be held at their site or virtually with a combination of sites. Once a month, residents will join the fellowship program at Marshfield for a professionalism and ethics seminar.

One licensed psychologist serves as the primary clinical supervisor at each postdoctoral site. The supervisor holds primary responsibility for all cases under supervision. Residents receive a minimum of two (2) hours of face-to-face individual supervision each week from their primary supervisor. Supplemental weekly individual supervision is provided as needed and all sites subscribe to an informal “open door” policy, encouraging residents to approach supervisors and staff with questions and concerns “on the fly.”

Each site holds case conferences for one to two hours per week that the resident will attend, which will fulfill the requirement for group supervision.

All residents have the option to participate in Thief River Falls’s Supervision of Supervision group, which covers topics pertaining to the provision of clinical supervision. Residents will visit two or three locations during the year to learn more about various Sanford locations and how psychologists are integrated in the medical setting. Each residency location has its own emphasis of practice, which is described below.

Residents are referred to as “psychology residents” during all interactions and are required to introduce themselves as supervised residents during initial contacts with patients. They must also provide the name and credentials of their primary supervisor, who co-signs all written documentation as an additional layer of oversight and responsibility.

The Sanford Health Postdoctoral Psychology Residency program requires that residents demonstrate minimum levels of achievement across all nine APA profession-wide competencies, as measured by the Sanford Health Postdoctoral Psychology Resident Evaluation.

Informal feedback to residents should be ongoing throughout the training year, with any concerns discussed early and often. Residents are informally evaluated by their primary supervisor at 60-90 days of their residency and formally evaluated by their primary supervisor two times annually, in month 5 and month 10.

Formal evaluations are conducted using a standard rating form using a Likert Scale that includes comment spaces where supervisors include specific written feedback regarding the residents’ performance and progress. The evaluation form includes information about performance in all nine profession-wide competencies and associated learning elements.

In addition to the evaluations described above, residents must complete a self-evaluation form at the beginning and end of the residency. Residents must complete an evaluation of their supervisor at 5-months, and 10-months and a program evaluation at the end of the training year in order to provide feedback that informs any changes or improvements in the training program. Residents are required to submit evaluations for each didactic session during the year. All evaluation forms can be located in the Resident Handbook, on the MedHub platform, and on http://www.sh-ppr.org/. Evaluations are submitted to the Training Director(s) via MedHub.

All residents are expected to complete 2080 hours of training during the residency year with a minimum of 500 hours in face-to-face clinical service delivery. Meeting the hours requirement, attending required training experiences (e.g., didactic seminars, consultation groups), and obtaining sufficient ratings on all evaluations demonstrates that the resident has progressed satisfactorily through and completed the residency program.

Doctoral residents are also expected to achieve the goals and objectives of the residency program, as stated on the Program Overview section of the Resident Handbook, and as reflected by final evaluation scores meeting the minim level of achievement as stated in the Resident Evaluation Policy. Residents are expected to attend all mandatory training activities, as well as to abide by the APA Code of Ethics, the Sanford Health Postdoctoral Psychology Resident Code of Conduct, and the requirements of Sanford Health Postdoctoral Psychology Residency training program