MESSAGE FROM THE CHIEFS 

Welcome to the Griffin Memorial Hospital Psychiatry Residency Program’s website.  Thank you for your interest in our program.

Griffin Memorial Hospital is unique in many ways and has a long and rich history in mental health.  The first structures on campus were home to a school for women, High Gate Academy. In 1895 it was sold to the Oklahoma Sanitarium Co. and became the first mental health facility in Oklahoma.  Prior to that, mental health patients in Oklahoma had to be sent to Illinois via train to be treated.  The first description on the front gates read “Norman Institute for Violently Mentally Insane.”  In 1899, sanitarium officials hired David W. Griffin, a psychiatrist from North Carolina. “He saw that the word ‘insane' was on the gates, and he personally chiseled that word off” The hospital has been owned by the state since the early 1900s and was originally named Central State Hospital. It was later changed to Griffin Memorial Hospital in 1953.

Griffin Memorial Hospital (GMH) continues to be the home to the Psychiatry residency program.  Our program has 6 residency spots each year that are filled through the NRMP match.  The GMH campus in Norman houses the residency office and is our location for our inpatient psychiatry rotations in PGY-1 and PGY-2.  Our program has a strong focus on psychodynamic therapy in addition to med management and our residents start carrying therapy patients at the beginning of their PGY-2 year. The residency program offers multiple tracks during our third year including therapy, substance, child psychiatry, and med management to further expand our training knowledge and experience. 

One of the key strengths of our program lies in our patient population. Being a state hospital, we are exposed to vast range of pathology and acuity that is akin to psychiatry. Our hospital serves a large proportion of indigent population who historically have less access to health care and often have more complex pathology and comorbidities.  There is a saying in our program that if you have trained and worked at Griffin, you can go anywhere in the world and be comfortable managing any psychiatric patient presented to you.

Another key strength of our program is our early exposure to child and adolescent psychiatry. At our program, we provide after hour admissions and call coverage at the Children's Recovery Center (CRC) starting our intern year. We also have a one-month rotation on the crisis unit at CRC both as a PGY-1 and PGY-2. In addition, we have the option of choosing the child track in our PGY-3 year where we are able to work at the Central Oklahoma Community Mental Health Center child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient clinic for the entire year. Due to this robust exposure and training, our residents have had no trouble matching in competitive child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship programs in Oklahoma and across the United States.

One of the key draws to our program is the supportive family environment that we are able to enjoy. As an unopposed psychiatry program, we are the only residents at the hospital and surrounding facilities. This creates a close-knit work environment and allows us to support each other on a more personal level. Many candidates are attracted to our program based on the friendships and family feel that the current residents share.

Last but not least is the location of the program. The city of Norman is one of the fastest growing cities in Oklahoma. Well known for being home to the University of Oklahoma, Norman is a bustling college town with an abundance of local restaurants, sports, activities, and culture. It is a great place to live, raise a family, and enjoy the low cost of living. Norman is located just miles away from Oklahoma City which offers a booming downtown, our amazing Thunder basketball team and a vast array of concerts, sports, dining, and activities. With Oklahoma being centrally located, Will Rogers World Airport offers flights to most major cities around the U.S. and makes getting to and from the city a breeze.

Please take time to explore our website for details about our program and do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.