Meet the Director and Team | Clinical Health Psychology Doctoral Internship at St. Rita's Medical Center

Meet the Director and Team — Clinical Psychology Doctoral Internship at St. Rita's Medical Center

Welcome from the Program Director

Thank you for your interest in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Internship Program at Mercy Health — St. Rita’s Medical Center. St. Rita’s is recognized for its commitment to providing quality evidence-based care to northwest Ohio. Our patients represent a wide breadth of clinical conditions in both outpatient and inpatient settings, making St. Rita’s an ideal place to train. Psychology interns work with multidisciplinary teams of physicians, nurses, and many other disciplines to provide exemplary care. One of the greatest strengths of our training program is a welcoming and collegial working environment.

We provide an opportunity for balancing supervision with learning practice autonomy, allowing each intern to develop their personal style, while also helping them exceed training competencies. We are proud of the training opportunities that we offer and hope this introduction conveys our sense of enthusiasm for the work we do. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at psychologytraining@mercy.com. We look forward to
hearing from you.

Samantha Cain, PhD | Program Director and Bariatric Surgery Supervisor, Psychology Internship Core Faculty

Graduate School: University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
Internship: Clinical health psychology internship at Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Michigan

Dr. Cain has worked in medical settings including advanced heart care, heart and lung transplant, kidney transplant, liver transplant, weight management, consultation liaison, family medicine, and internal medicine. Her current position includes completing psychological evaluations and follow-up care for patients active in St. Rita’s weight management program. She also carries a general mental health case load. Additionally, Dr. Cain has ongoing research in the areas of patient health literacy and on health care providers’ perspectives on interdisciplinary collaboration.

Esther Strahan, PhD | Psychology Division Chair and Rehabilitation Supervisor, Psychology Internship Core Faculty

Graduate School: Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Internship: Veteran’s Affairs Illiana Health Care System, Danville, Illinois
Post-doctoral training in clinical health psychology: Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

Dr. Strahan has worked in both academic and clinical settings. Her post-doctoral training and clinical work have focused on health psychology and rehabilitation psychology, with particular emphasis on CBT for insomnia, management of delirium, treatment of chronic pain and functional gut disorders, and adjustment to disability, along with generalist work. Her published research is primarily focused on the impacts of anxiety on life outcomes. She serves as a book reviewer for Family Medicine and is a core faculty member in the St. Rita’s Family Medicine Residency Program.

Thomas Hull, PhD | Mental Health and Assessment Supervisor, Psychology Internship Core Faculty Member

Graduate School: The Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio in 2001
Internship: Clinical Psychology Assessment and Counseling at Fulmer and Associates

Dr. Hull has worked in many settings, academically and clinically. Since he has combined credentials in clinical psychology, social work, and counseling, his approach incorporates these three different fields. His post-doctoral training has been in neuropsychological assessment and counseling in a variety of settings: adult prison system, adolescent detention, private practice, rehabilitation, and elderly rehabilitation centers. He has extensive experience in designing programs based on CBT and DBT for adolescents and parents. Currently, his primary focus in on psychological assessments, neuropsychological screenings and counseling for children, adolescents, and adults. Clinically, his primary focus is with the assessment and treatment of childhood and adults ADHD, Autism, ODD and emotional issues. Finally, he provides neuropsychological screenings for children, adults and elderly for learning disabilities, dementia/cognitive delay, autism, and ADHD.

Jeffrey Cigrang, PhD, ABPP | Integrated Behavioral Health in Family Medicine Supervisor, Psychology Internship Core Faculty Member

Graduate School: University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee
Internship: Wilford Hall Medical Center, San Antonio Texas
Post-doctoral training in clinical health psychology: Wilford Hall Medical Center, San Antonio Texas

Dr. Cigrang previously served as an integrated psychologist with Dayton Veteran’s Affairs department of Hematology & Oncology, as Professor with the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University and had a distinguished active-duty career as a clinical psychologist in the United States Air Force. His clinical and research interests are in the areas of military psychology (treatment of deployment-related PTSD, effects of military lifestyle on individual and relationship functioning), primary care integration (adaptation of evidenced based psychological treatments for primary care), and health psychology (tobacco cessation, community health intervention). He has published in a variety of peer reviewed journals and has received funding from the Department of Defense for completed and ongoing research projects.

Contact Us

Program Coordinator: Cheyanna Carew, MBA.
Training Director: Samantha Cain, PhD
Email Address: psychologytraining@mercy.com
Phone Number: 419-604-3386