UTHSCT chosen as Cenikor Community Partner of Year Award

November 8, 2018

The Cenikor Foundation of Tyler named UTHSCT its Community Partner of the Year for 2018.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine’s Psychiatry Residency Program has been recognized as the “Community Partner of the Year” by the Cenikor Foundation, an East Texas non-profit substance abuse and behavioral health organization.

Cenikor offers long-term and short-term inpatient services, along with detoxification and outpatient programs to clients in greater Tyler and surrounding areas. UTHSCT psychiatry residents complete their addiction rotation at Cenikor, spending one month working with patients as they begin the initial steps to recovery. The Psychiatry Residency Program began its second year of curriculum in July of 2018

The psychiatry residents work with the client-patients in an atypical, non-clinical model of care. Program Director Shim Buford, MD, says this is an excellent opportunity for residents to see past the acute care setting and observe how their work contributes to patients’ achieving sobriety.

Both Cenikor and UTHSCT consider the rotation a winning collaboration. Recovering alcoholics and addicts credit Cenikor with an atmosphere of healing that provides tools to help turn their lives around. UTHSCT psychiatry residents are exposed to and involved in a unique facet of behavioral medicine in East Texas. The university and Cenikor plan to continue the partnership.