The Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) is an affiliated teaching facility located at the southern edge of the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area (more info
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It provides comprehensive inpatient, primary, secondary, and tertiary care in medical, surgical, neurological, rehabilitative, and short-term psychiatric modalities, primary and specialized ambulatory care and rehabilitative care. It has a current inpatient capacity of 237 acute care and 104 extended care beds. A new inpatient Spinal Cord Injury Program building is scheduled to open in 2008. This medical center is often described as a "flagship" and "center of excellence" in the VA system, with numerous specialized programs available and state of the art equipment.
The Minneapolis VAMC provides health care to veterans residing in our primary service area, which includes Western Wisconsin and Minnesota. It also serves as a tertiary referral center for the upper VA Midwest Healthcare Network which spans a much greater geographical area and includes some two million veterans. Last fiscal year, there were 569,538 outpatient visits, 8,099 inpatient stays, and 878 extended care stays at this facility. Each of the outpatient visits may represent multiple encounters with multiple departments on the same day; hence, there are more than a million patient encounters yearly. The Minneapolis VAMC is one of four officially designated Lead Polytrauma Centers receiving and treating returning veterans with multiple traumatic injuries sustained in the course of the current conflict. Additionally, this medical center is one of eight in the VA system that houses a Women Veterans Comprehensive Health Center and the first VA to provide mammography for female veterans. Over 3,000 women are seen in this medical center annually.
In addition to the Psychology Training Programs, The Minneapolis VAMC has one of the largest education and training programs in the VA system, with more than 1,500 students rotating through annually. It has active affiliations with 50 colleges, universities, and vocational schools in allied health professions, such as medicine, psychiatry, health care administration, audiology, speech pathology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, social work, psychology, laboratory and dental technology, physician assistants, nursing, and pharmacy. The Minneapolis VAMC has particularly strong partnerships with the University of Minnesota in providing clinical services, training, and research across a variety of disciplines.
The Presence of Psychology at the Minneapolis VAMC
The VAMC Psychology staff currently consists of 56 doctoral psychologists, nearly all of whom hold clinical faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and are involved in training. Each psychologist works in one or more of the specialized treatment units and acts as a member of a multidisciplinary treatment team and/or as a consultant to programs within that setting. The Psychology staff hold a diversity of interests, theories, and techniques in psychology and work in widely-varied programs with different kinds of patients. The training staff train eight interns yearly – five are in our general psychology track and two in the Neuropsychology track. There are also four postdoctoral residents, three in clinical psychology (SPMI, Rehabilitation/Polytrauma, and Mental Health/Primary Care emphases) and one in Clinical Neuropsychology. Five psychology technicians and three secretaries complete the staffing.
Training Opportunities
The Minneapolis VAMC offers assessment and intervention practicum training opportunities at the doctoral level only working with a wide range of psychological issues across different settings including: severe psychopathology, personality disorders, substance use disorders, post traumatic stress, mood and anxiety disorders, neuropsychology, health psychology, rehabilitation psychology, and geropsychology. There is also ample opportunity to work with female veterans.
The following link will connect you to our Psychology pre-doctoral internship web page listing internship rotation possibilities which will provide more detailed explanations of these training opportunities. Be sure to hit the back button on your browser when you're done reviewing these rotations so that you may return to this page.
The following link will open a PDF listing of supervisors detailing their credentials, clinical interests and research/academic experience. Supervisors:
Practicum Structure
Practicum training at the Minneapolis VAMC typically begins at the beginning of the academic year in September. Initial agreements are made through December of the same year. If both supervisor and practicum student agree, the practicum continues through the end of the academic year and, at times, may extend through the summer. In terms of hours, practicum students need to dedicate at least 1 1/2 days to on-site practicum training. Total on-site hours range from 10 to 15 per week. Some supervisors may also require offsite work consisting of readings relevant to the practicum.
Although graduate programs often desire students to complete either an "assessment" or an "intervention" practicum, many of the training experiences at the Minneapolis VA do not lend themselves to doing just assessment or intervention. Therefore, some flexibility in terms of graduate program and practicum student expectations is needed.
Practicum placements are not decided by rotation or training experience but rather a match between students’ interests and experience and supervisors’ expertise and their availability to take on a practicum student for that year.
Application Process
Applications for practicum Training are accepted between the third week in January through the third week in February for the following academic year beginning in September. Please follow the sequence listed below:
Complete the Minneapolis VAMC Psychology practicum application
which can be downloaded by clicking on the following link. The application and a vita or résumé should be e-mailed to Wayne.Siegel@va.gov between the third week of January and no later than the end of the second week in February to apply for practicum for the following academic year.
Submission of a letter of recommendation describing your readiness for practicum by a clinical supervisor or, if there has been no previous clinical training, by a faculty member that is familiar with your academic work. Additional federal employment forms and processes may be required even for trainees who serve without compensation (WOC).
Applications are reviewed by supervisory staff and selected applicants are invited for interviews. Invitations for in-person interviews will be extended by the end of February. Depending upon academic and clinical experience and other factors, applicants may be interviewed by telephone or in-person by the Director of Training prior to consideration by a specific supervisor.
All applicants not selected to be interviewed will be notified by e-mail by the end of February.
The remaining applicants, whether selected or not selected, will be notified by e-mail by the second week in March.
Applicants who are selected for practicum placement will need to make themsleves available for a Practicum Orientation on Monday 8/25/08 from 8:00 am through noon.
At least three week before this orientation, practicum students will need to:
Review, sign and and return the following documents (located at the bottom of this page) to Theresa Schuldt in order to obtain access to the hospitals computer network and computerized patient records.
Applicants who are not US citizens are eligible to apply for practicum. However, if such students are selected, a waiver must be approved by the Medical Center Director before final approval. Historically, the Director has signed such waivers, but there can be no pre-guarantee of a waiver for non-citizens prior to application and full consideration.
Further information regarding Psychology Practicum Training at the Minneapolis VAMC may be obtained calling
Thad Strom, Ph.D.
Assistant Director of Training in Psychology
VA Medical Center (116B)
One Veterans Drive
Minneapolis , MN 55417-2300
Telephone: 612.467.7316
Fax: 612.727.5964
Documents and training needed in order to start practicum
These documents need to be forwarded to Ms. Schuldt by mail, email or fax at least 3 weeks before starting practicum. Her contact information is as follows:
Theresa Schuldt
VA Medical Center (116A)
One veterans Drive
Minneapolis , MN 55417 theresa.schuldt@va.gov
Phone: 612.467.4767
Fax: 612.467.1119
The Training Setting