The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Rush University Medical Center in downtown Chicago is recruiting three post-doctoral fellows for the Road Home Program: The National Center of Excellence for Veterans and Their Families at Rush (RHP). RHP’s mission is to compassionately serve veterans and their families. It provides individualized care on an outpatient basis to veterans and their loved ones to help heal the invisible wounds of war. Additionally, RHP is part of the Warrior Care Network as a Midwest regional center for the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through a two-week Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). The fellow will be an integral part of our clinical program and will provide clinical services in-person and via telehealth. Fellows will have ample opportunity to treat PTSD, anxiety, and depression related to combat and military sexual trauma in the IOP using Cognitive Processing Therapy and the Unified Protocol. Veterans incur no out of pocket cost for services, travel, or lodging to eliminate barriers to IOP attendance, which facilitates the unique opportunity for fellows to provide care for veterans of diverse backgrounds and identities. Fellows will primarily be involved in the IOP, but will also maintain a small outpatient caseload throughout the year with a focus on brief, evidence-based treatment for a variety of presenting concerns. Within the IOP, fellows will perform comprehensive diagnostic assessments, facilitate individual sessions, and co-lead psychoeducational groups on a variety of topics. Fellows may provide outpatient clinical services to adult family members, including couples’ therapy, and children of veterans (depending on the candidate’s interests and background). As a part of training at RHP, fellows will have ongoing individual and group supervision, seminars on subjects related to RHP clinical work and professional development. This is an exciting opportunity to gain valuable clinical experience using evidence-based care within a multidisciplinary team at a major medical center.

Fellows have the opportunity to contribute to research activities that help advance the mission of RHP. The fellowship is designed to be a clinical training experience. However, if you have strong interest in a combined research/clinical fellowship, please specify your interests and desired research activities in your application for consideration. RHP has a rigorous research department housing multiple research faculty and staff. The research team’s primary focus is on enhancing intensive treatment programs to work for trauma-exposed individuals, both veteran and non-veteran populations, through the use of predictive models and machine learning. To date, research faculty have published over 30 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals related to improving intensive/massed PTSD treatment, understanding treatment mechanisms, and veteran mental health more broadly. RHP has several ongoing grant-funded studies including clinical trials. Currently, research is being conducted in the areas of PTSD, Moral Injury, MST, PTSD-related treatment, other impacts of military service and pre- and post-service traumatic events, and PTSD-related treatment among civilians who have experienced a broad variety of trauma. 

For the 2023-2024 training year, two additional fellowship positions are available for a research study clinician focused on intensive, PTSD-related treatment for community populations with the TREAT Lab. You can find more information about the TREAT Lab, current research faculty, and research interests here. 

The ideal candidate will have experience with trauma and evidence-based treatment, have a solid research background, and be interested in establishing a scientist-practitioner career. For RHP, candidates that have previous clinical experience with veterans or active duty service members may be particularly well-suited. Qualified candidates must have an APA approved doctorate in Clinical or Counseling Psychology. For a complete application, please send a cover letter that describes your careers goals and how the training environment can facilitate your continued professional development, CV, unofficial transcript, and two letters of recommendation by January 2, 2023. Please specify in your cover letter if you are interested in TREAT Lab and/or RHP.

The fellowship salary is currently $54,840, consistent with NIH postdoctoral fellowship guidelines that are typically increased each year. Fellows have access to over $5,000 in professional development funds which can be used to cover the cost of the EPPP, trainings, conference attendance, books, and other professional development expenses. Fellows are eligible for health insurance (medical, dental, and vision benefits), retirement (403b), and other benefits as well as 26 vacation days, 7 holidays, and 10 sick days.