The goal of this program is to strengthen the role of the young physician in mental health care through teaching skills, knowledge, and therapeutic attitudes appropriate to this medical discipline. This goal is accomplished by means of clinical, case-based and didactic learning experiences that are organized according to the level of experience of the student and resident and to the time-frame allotted.
Students function as part of a treatment team consisting of an attending psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist, a psychiatric social worker, and psychiatric nurses. They learn to work with the treatment team and to participate in evaluation, treatment, and discharge planning. Time is also scheduled for clinical exposure to child psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. Increasing emphasis is placed on problem-based learning as a teaching method.
The psychiatry curriculum for family practice residents consists of a one-month block rotation in substance abuse and inpatient psychiatry, and a longitudinal outpatient curriculum designed to foster the assumption of a broad role in mental health care by the family physician in his practice. A wide variety of clinical settings is utilized for teaching purposes in order to optimize integration of psychiatric skills into general medical care.
Didactic elements in the curriculum include basic psychiatry, family assessment, psychosocial elements of medical practice, and an emphasis on personal development issues important to the physician.
The active and extensive research and service activities conducted by the psychiatry program provide complementary mechanisms for strengthening the mental health role of young physicians.
Chair and Clerkship Director:
Thaddeus P. Ulzen, MD, FRCP (C)
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine
Capstone Medical Center
Box 870326
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0326
Phone: (205) 348-1325 Fax: (205) 348-5676
tulzen@cchs.ua.edu
