Health Service Psychology Doctoral Internship Program

Ibemed is a professional psychological corporation operating at the intersection of Health Psychology, neuroscience, and advanced behavioral healthcare. The aim of Ibemed’s Health Service Psychology Doctoral Internship Program is to train entry-level doctoral scientist-practitioners to become highly competent clinical psychologists prepared for autonomous practice within multidisciplinary medical centers, integrated healthcare systems, and forensic consultation settings.

The program’s training philosophy is grounded in the practitioner-scholar model, with an emphasis on empirical science, objective psychometric assessment, evidence-based clinical practice, and comprehensive pathophysiological literacy. The program is designed to foster a collaborative, collegial, and dynamic learning environment through regularly scheduled individual clinical-care meetings, case focused interactive group sessions, didactic learning, multidisciplinary consultation, interdisciplinary case coordination, and shared professional development activities.

Qualifications

• Enrollment in or completion of a California license-eligible Psy.D. or Ph.D. program
• Clinical experience in assessment, psychotherapy, documentation, and patient care
• Strong interest in medical psychology, behavioral medicine, health psychology, or integrated care
• Excellent communication, documentation, and collaboration skills
• Commitment to ethical practice, cultural responsiveness, supervision, and professional development

Responsibilities

• Provide evidence-based individual psychotherapy
• Administer and interpret psychometric assessments within scope of training and supervision
• Maintain timely clinical documentation
• Participate in didactic trainings, group supervision and individual supervision
• Travel to assigned outpatient clinics based on program and patient needs

Clinical Didactic Training

The Health Service Psychology Doctoral Internship Program consists of five structured rotations designed to provide interns with progressive, competency-based training across the major domains of Health Service Psychology practice. The rotations are integrated within the broader internship program and combine didactic instruction, supervised clinical application, case consultation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and ongoing evaluation of intern development.

Throughout the internship year, interns will participate in scheduled clinical didactic activities designed to support the progressive development of knowledge and competencies appropriate to the internship level of training. Didactic instruction is integrated across five structured rotations:

• Ethics, Law, Diversity, and Documentation
• Evidence-Based Therapeutic Treatment Approaches
• Neurocognitive Evaluations and Neuroscience
• Diagnostics and Psychopharmacology
• Health Service Psychology Integration

Ethics, Law, Diversity, and Documentation

Interns are trained on the APA Ethics Code and the application of the code to their patient care. Interns also learn about appropriate consent and confidentiality responsibilities. Interns are trained to conduct risk assessments and how to take appropriate action in emergency situations. Interns also learn about workers compensation law and how to understand forensic evaluations. Diversity training emphasizes cultural humility, self-awareness, ethical practice, and the effects of identity, socioeconomic status, language, disability, immigration history, trauma exposure, healthcare access, and systemic inequities on psychological assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Interns learn to recognize and address potential bias while adapting clinical services to the cultural and individual needs of diverse medical populations. Interns also learn how to document notes appropriately, use healthcare charting software, and review medical records.

Evidence-Based Therapeutic Treatment Approaches

Interns provide short- and long-term evidence-based psychotherapy tailored to medically complex patient populations. Key interventions include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for chronic pain management, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy (CRT), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and Prolonged Exposure (PE). Training emphasizes clinical case conceptualization, treatment planning, progress monitoring, interdisciplinary coordination, and the appropriate adaptation of psychological interventions to patients’ medical, cognitive, functional, and psychosocial needs.

Neurocognitive Evaluations and Neuroscience

Interns develop competency in administering, scoring, and clinically interpreting objective neurocognitive and functional assessment batteries. Training focuses on the evaluation of cognitive decline, traumatic brain injury (TBI), neurodegenerative diseases—including Alzheimer’s disease and vascular conditions. Interns learn to integrate test findings with medical records, behavioral observations, clinical interviews, symptom-validity data, and relevant psychosocial factors to formulate diagnostically sound and clinically useful conclusions. Interns also develop a thorough understanding of neuroscience, learning about how the brain, memory, learning, emotions, hormones, and genetics are interconnected. Interns integrate neuroscience training into case conceptualization, examining the relationships among brain functioning, behavior, cognition, emotion, and physical health.

Diagnostics and Psychopharmacology

Interns gain a thorough understanding of various diagnostic conditions including depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, trauma and stressor-related disorders, neurocognitive disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, and other psychological disorders. Interns learn how to apply appropriate treatment techniques for patients with these disorders. Interns also learn about psychopharmacological approaches for patients with these disorders. Interns gain understanding on how to conceptualize cases in terms of patient diagnoses.

Health Service Psychology Integration

Interns gain knowledge in medical conditions including cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, endocrine, immune, and reproductive conditions. Interns also learn about how various medical conditions impact the psychological wellbeing of patients. In addition, interns gain knowledge in how psychological conditions impact medical conditions. Interns conceptualize cases based on the integration of their understanding of both the psychological and medical conditions of patients.

Each clinical didactic activity will provide structured instruction in the relevant topic area through assigned readings, recorded instructional materials, lectures, presentations, demonstrations, and guided discussion. Clinical examples and case illustrations may be incorporated to clarify concepts and demonstrate their application to professional practice; however, the primary purpose of these activities will be formal instruction rather than supervision of interns’ current clinical cases.

Clinical didactic activities will help interns:

• Develop foundational and advanced knowledge relevant to each topic area.
• Integrate scientific literature, clinical theory, ethical standards, and professional guidelines.
• Apply didactic content to assessment, diagnosis, case conceptualization, treatment planning, intervention, documentation, and interdisciplinary practice.
• Evaluate clinical issues through discussion, problem-solving exercises, demonstrations, and case-based examples.
• Strengthen clinical judgment and competency in medical psychology practice.

Travel

Reliable travel is required to assigned clinics across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties.

For more information about the Health Service Psychology Doctoral Internship Program, please contact us at info@ibemed.com