MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN
 The
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh
School of Medicine is a national leader in clinical
care, research, and education. Building on a
long-standing tradition of excellence, the Department
offers a flexible and comprehensive residency training
program. Graduates are prepared for prominent positions
in basic and clinical psychiatric research, clinical
care, education and training, and psychiatric
administration through mentored experiences in
contemporary practices and instruction in the scientific
basis for those practices.
In
keeping with the precepts of modern psychiatry, one of
the principal objectives of our residency training
program - which integrates child, adolescent, and adult
psychiatry - is to prepare clinician-scientists to be
both accomplished in state-of-the-art clinical skills
and knowledge and equipped to pursue research careers
that will improve the future practice of psychiatry. To
this end, the Department provides an exciting academic
climate with multiple opportunities for residents to
pursue their intellectual interests, develop clinical
and laboratory skills, and gain the experience needed to
develop a successful research career. This objective is
facilitated by a research track within the residency
program that can be tailored to the needs of individual
residents, and by a number of training grants that
provide support for continued research career
development after residency. A second major objective is
to prepare residents to be leaders in clinical
administration in an academic setting. This objective is
supported by the Academic Administrator Clinician
Educator (AACE)
Track which provides mentored experiences in clinical
leadership and education.
The
academic medical center of the 21st century
must meet the demands of clinical service, training, and
research within a health care environment that is
constantly changing. The explosion of neurobiological
research, coupled with the market forces of health care
reform, will make this era both exciting and
challenging. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
(UPMC)
and the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
(WPIC)
are uniquely qualified to lead this revolution. We are
the foremost non-governmental site of psychiatric
research in the United States, second only to the
National Institute of Mental Health's intramural program
in size and scope. We are also a regional provider of
medical and psychiatric care for the tri-state are of
western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and eastern Ohio,
and are the major provider of mental health care
services to the chronically and persistently mentally
ill of Allegheny and the adjoining counties in
Pennsylvania. These functions define WPIC as a regional
and national force in academic and public sector
psychiatry, and place us at the forefront of health care
initiatives to treat homeless, substance dependent, and
forensic psychiatric patients.
The
Department and WPIC are also known for our initiatives
in international health care and human rights. In the
past, teams of psychiatrists from WPIC have helped to
address psychiatric abuses in the former Soviet Union
and have delivered mental health care to orphaned
children with neuropsychiatric disorders in Romania.
More recently we are at the forefront of international
collaborations with colleagues in South America, the UK,
Spain, Italy, France, India, and Israel among many other
places.
In our
effort to train psychiatry's future leaders, we seek to
attract residents whose common characteristics are a
desire to learn and a capacity to excel. The
psychiatrist of the future must be equally adept at
psychiatric differential diagnosis, medical and
psychosocial treatments, health care team management,
and medical economics. We continue our push to identify
cutting-edge treatment approaches to improve the lives
of our patients and are committed to teaching our future
clinicians the skills necessary to successfully
implement these approaches. We urge you to join us in
shaping the future of our exciting discipline.
David A. Lewis, M.D.
Chair, Department of
Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
UPMC Professor in
Translational Neuroscience
Medical Director,
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
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