Article archive / April 1, 2012
Originally published: . Volume 3, No. 8. Source pages: 7.
As a follow-up to your telephone conversation with Janet Pippin, I would like to share my thoughts on supervision issues facing psychologists supervised by Medical Psychologists in Louisiana.
Since most licensing laws in the United States require psychological interns and post-doctoral residents to be supervised by licensed psychologists, it is unclear how psychology licensing boards will recognize supervision hours provided by Medical Psychologists if they are only licensed by the medical board. As the Louisiana law states, the Medical Psychologist is still considered a psychologist. However, when the licensure information for a Medical Psychologist serving as a supervisor of a psychology intern or resident is provided to another state, psychology licensing boards in those other states are going to be faced with a dilemma in that the license will be issued by a medical board, not a psychology board. Therefore the supervisor is not under the authority of a psychology licensing board.
The net effect for the interns or residents receiving such supervision is a situation where they cannot be assured that a psychology licensing board will accept those hours of supervised experience to qualify them for licensure. Some boards may be open to recognizing Medical Psychologists as the licensed psychologists they are in Louisiana. But I am concerned that any number of boards may not recognize psychologists licensed by a medical board as licensed psychologists regardless of the law in Louisiana.
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