Richard Zhang — 2nd Year Solnit Fellow

Welcome! I’m Richard Zhang, a newly turned second-year fellow in the Solnit Track. I fast-tracked into Yale for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship after completing residency at UConn. Having grown tremendously here, I’m honored to share a glimpse into my first year.

In our track, rotations are longitudinal and alternate by weekday. As a CAP-1, I worked Mondays and Wednesdays at the Solnit South Campus in Middletown, rotating for six months at a residential treatment facility and another six months on a high-acuity inpatient unit.

I typically arrived around 8:45 AM to review patient charts before the 9:00 AM morning report, where our multidisciplinary team discussed overnight events, patient status, and priorities for the day. Before finishing around 4:30 PM, my tasks included seeing and treating patients, writing progress notes, and, depending on the week, completing admission intakes or care planning meetings. Over the year, my co-fellows and I gained increasing autonomy while benefiting from rich supervision and weekly Solnit didactics.

On Tuesdays, I attended full-day, protected didactics at the Yale Child Study Center alongside co-fellows across all tracks. Topics ranged from psychopharmacology and health disparities to child development and family therapy.

Thursdays were split between inpatient mornings at Solnit South and outpatient clinic afternoons at the Child Study Center. For three months, I rotated on Fridays with the Yale New Haven Hospital child consult-liaison service. During the remaining nine months, I pursued a flexible advocacy elective, collaborating nationally as an APA/APAF Leadership Fellow and a Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry Fellow.

Projects included promoting countertransference education among non-psychiatry physicians, surveying immigrant mental health training across residencies, co-building the APA Resident-Fellow Member Caucus, and co-authoring Action Papers for the APA Assembly.

The Solnit Track has aligned closely with my interests in transitional-age psychiatry and social determinants of health. It offers the best of both worlds—training within a premier university environment while gaining extensive experience in evaluation, formulation, and navigating a state system. I’m grateful to work alongside passionate, multidisciplinary colleagues serving teenagers with complex needs, all while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Everyone has been supportive.

Looking ahead to my second year, I plan to teach a child behavior lecture to Yale medical students during their psychiatry clerkship, develop a new Psychology Today column, and pursue an elective rotation in medical journalism.

I look forward to all that’s ahead—and would choose this fellowship again without hesitation. Thank you for your interest, and please feel free to connect with us!