The psychiatry department provides psychiatric services to the entire patient population.  This includes adolescents, adults, and elderly with severe, acute and persistent mental illness, as well as individuals with dual diagnoses. A significant number of patients have concurrent physical conditions/complications accompanying their mental illness. Treatment interventions for the majority of admissions are primarily focused on relief of acute symptoms, rapid stabilization, and re-entry into the community for further treatment and follow-up. For patients assessed as needing continuing inpatient treatment, interventions are focused on rehabilitation of skill and functioning maintenance. A variety of service models are available ranging from psychosocial to maximum care.  Immersed in each treatment program component are provisions to meet physical needs of the patients.  Patients may move from one treatment program component to another based on identified needs, accomplished through referral and screening mechanisms.  Psychiatrists are responsible for the integration and overall management of the majority of patients.   

Major psychiatric services include:

• Psychiatric assessment (needs, strengths, problems, and initial treatment) and evaluation (comprehensive mental status).
• Psychiatric diagnoses.
• Determine immediate treatment and subsequent treatment.
• Select and monitor efforts of  pharmcotherapeutic  agents.
• Monitor, evaluate, and integrate treatment modalities with documentation of attention to patient's response to treatment and progress therein.  In this role, the psychiatrist functions as a member of an interdisciplinary team.
• Patient safety, particularly related to special treatment procedures, i.e., use of mechanical restraint, seclusion, isolation time-out, electroconvulsive therapy, suicide precautions, etc.
• Determine readiness for discharge.
• Coordinate post-discharge planning.

• Day visits to Broughton Hospital of Medical Students from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are scheduled on a monthly basis.
• Clinical Clerkships are available at Broughton Hospital through Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
• Broughton Hospital is a training site for Wake Forest University Baptist Medial Center Psychiatric Residents. Residents are assigned a three-month rotation generally in the third year of residency.

American Psychiatric Association

North Carolina Psychiatric Association