HAGERSTOWN, Md. — The new Meritus Health Psychiatry Residency Program is ready to start in July, part of the health system’s commitment to expand mental health care locally and nationally.

Residency programs serve as structured apprenticeships leading to board certification in a particular specialty. A resident is a physician who is enrolled in this apprenticeship or residency and is overseen by board-certified faculty physicians.

The Meritus Psychiatry Residency is a four-year program with five spaces each year for a total of 20 residents once the program is filled out.

The five residents who matched with Meritus’ highly selective program in March will be working in both Meritus Medical Center and Brook Lane, the second largest stand-alone mental health facility in the state of Maryland.

“At Brook Lane, starting in July, there will be residents full-time on the inpatient adult unit,” said Heather Theibert, D.O., the residency program director. “In July 2026, residents will be rotating on the inpatient child and adolescent units, and, in July 2027, the plan is for residents to be seeing patients in the outpatient practice as well. Residents will be seeing patients daily and managing their care throughout these services under the supervision of a board-certified psychiatrist.”

This kind of hands-on training has been proven to produce physicians who can offer expert care. And it has also been shown that physicians tend to practice where they are educated or complete their residency.

“It’s expert care, close to home,” said Jeff O’Neal, CEO of Brook Lane. “We are thrilled as an organization to offer the psychiatry residency and, at the same time, provide our community with expanded mental health care offerings.”

The psychiatry residency program joins the Meritus Family Medicine Residency Program. Meritus has plans to continue expanding graduate medical education programs in other specialties in the next several years and plans to have more than 100 resident physicians.

That’s in addition to the Meritus School of Osteopathic Medicine, the first medical school to open its doors in Maryland in more than 100 years. The inaugural class of about 90 students is to start in July. Once fully enrolled, the student body will be 720 students.

To learn more about the Meritus Health Psychiatry Residency Program and Meritus’ other graduate medical education offerings, please visit www.meritushealth.com/residency.

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Meritus Health, Western Maryland’s largest health care provider, is located at the crossroads of Western Maryland, Southern Pennsylvania and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The mission of Meritus Health is to improve the health of the region by providing the best healthcare, health services and medical education. As an anchor organization for the community, Meritus has 4,000 employees and serves more than 200,000 residents of the tristate region through Meritus Medical Center, Brook Lane Health Services, Meritus Medical Group, Meritus Home Health, Meritus Equipped for Life, and the Meritus School of Osteopathic Medicine. More information can be found at www.MeritusHealth.com or visit our Facebook page or LinkedIn page.