Unity Health Psychiatry Residency Program

Thank you for considering the Unity Health Psychiatry Residency Program to continue your post-graduate physician training. The Unity Health system is the largest employer in an eight-county rural area. As such, there are multiple treatment sites located within this area. This provides our Psychiatric Residents a broad exposure to a variety of clinical conditions and presentations.

As Program Director, I focus my efforts on making your academic and educational experiences stimulating and enriching. We have dedicated our program to prepare you to be the best psychiatrist you desire and can become. To accomplish this, we will introduce you to the coming paradigm shifts in providing psychiatric care such as Artificial Intelligence, Tele-psychiatry, Remote Monitoring, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and Ketamine Therapy. Our program has access to internationally renowned experts in psychiatric political profiling, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and psychiatric aspects of aerospace medicine. Residents are encouraged to develop their research interests while here, and we have a growing team of experts who can help.

Our faculty is dedicated to preparing you to practice psychiatry in your areas of interest after graduation. We strive to expose you to experienced providers in diverse treatment settings, in both the private and public sectors, to facilitate the professional paths you choose after graduation. While we are a young program, our attending physicians have years of experience practicing in various settings. Their expertise affords our residents exposure to “real world” psychiatry practices.

We have an excellent record for matching our residents to prestigious fellowship programs and are committed to continuing that trend. We hope that you will continue to actively consider our program as a place where you can grow. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions you may have to decide whether our program is an appropriate fit for your professional goals and aspirations.

Robert Strayhan, M.D.
Psychiatry Program Director

Our didactic curriculum includes weekly lectures on PRITE and ABPN board preparation topics along with Journal Club, psychotherapy and psychopharmacology treatment options, and differential diagnostic strategies for mental health disorders.

In your first two years of residency, you'll experience team-based inpatient care for adolescent, adult and geriatric patients. Also included in the first two years of rotations is time spent with an outpatient neurology clinic and a substance abuse clinic that treats both inpatient and outpatient clients. For your final two years, you'll work in community/outpatient care facilities, perform emergency consult/liaison work and practice forensic psychiatry.

Success in the Unity Health Psychiatry Residency Program also entails administrative responsibilities, research requirements, hospital service and community service opportunities. These experiences all train you to become more competent and proficient in the field of psychiatry.

Site 1: Unity Health - White County Medical Center; Site 2: Neurology Clinic of Arkansas; Site 3: Wilbur D. Mills Treatment Center; Site 4: Southeast Arkansas Behavioral Healthcare; Site 5: GAIN

Electives may include an additional experience in one of the above rotations or experience in other areas of psychiatric interest.

The Unity Health Graduate Medical Education department requires residents to engage in our robust scholarly activity curriculum. Under the guidance of your program director and the director of research, you'll conduct research for the purpose of publishing in medical journals, or presenting at conferences.

Learn more about our scholarly activity requirements.

First year

Second year

Third year

Fourth year

Applications to the Psychiatry Residency Program are only accepted via the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). Our code number for the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) is 2104400C0. Our ACGME Program ID is 4002800116.

We accept five residents each year who meet the following preferred applicant qualifications (no minimum USMLE or COMLEX scores required):

• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Dean's letter or Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE)
• Three letters of recommendation
• ECFMG certification, if applicable, by June of the application year

Interested in applying for an audition rotation? Learn more.

Unity Health will consider applicants who are U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and other individuals with work authorizations who do not require visa sponsorship by Unity Health.

Unity Health does not sponsor any visas or allow observerships.