General Psychiatry Residency Program
Our Psychiatry Residency Program offers an innovative and exciting didactic and clinical/experiential base for training. Faculty and residents work together, balancing clinical service and education. We have a patient base that is diverse in every way: ethnoculturally, socioeconomically, and by clinical service (private, public sector, community, etc.). This variety ensures that our residents will be able to practice psychiatry anywhere with anyone.
Our Mission: HEAR
Diverse Training Sites
Our residents encounter a wide variety of patient populations and systems of psychiatric care.
Our affiliate institutions:
- Parkland Health & Hospital System, one of the nation's premier public county hospitals
- William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, a UT Southwestern hospital
- Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center, one of the VA's academic flagship centers
- Children's Health Dallas, a private tertiary care pediatric hospital
- Metrocare Services, an innovative public-private community psychiatry system
- University of Texas Arlington and University of North Texas Student Mental Health
We involve every resident in each setting in a coherent plan that balances patient care and education. Diversity of settings allows residents to care for the widest possible range of patients by diagnosis, ethnic background, socioeconomic status, and location.
Psychiatry Residency Program Structure
We follow the requirements of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and provide rotations through different centers of care across the four postgraduate years (PGY) designed to:
- establish identity and competence as a physician and ability to manage medical emergencies, primary care, and fundamentals of psychiatric assessment and treatment (PGY1)
- consolidate identity and competence as a psychiatrist and ability to diagnose and manage acute presentations of all major areas of psychopathology in ethnically and socioeconomically diverse patients (PGY2)
- deepen understanding of diagnosis and formulation and develop competence in long-term management of psychiatric illness (PGY3)
- consolidate skills, pursue specific interests and passions, and begin to develop specific expertise (PGY4)
Advocacy
Our patients cannot flourish if they are not part of a supportive community. Therefore, advocacy for our patients is an important part of our identity.
We are committed to training psychiatrists who are expert in the brain, mind, and social systems; are highly capable at working in teams and care systems; meet each patient with dignity and the desire to listen; and feel supported by our training community and in turn support each other.
We believe this training can only happen in a community that is dedicated to diversity and inclusion and that pursues social justice and health care equity through vigorous anti-racism efforts.
Research
The presence and involvement of internationally recognized researchers is central to providing our residents the latest, most advanced, evidence-based clinical tools to prepare them to administer treatments yet to come. Our exciting research programs include:
- Biomarkers for mental illness
- Functional imaging in schizophrenia, depression, anorexia, addictions
- Psychotherapy research
- Mental health systems and quality improvement
- Psychopharmacology
- Adult autism
- Early psychosis
- Molecular genetics of serious mental illness and addictions
- Neurobiology of psychiatric illnesses
- Neuroplasticity, epigenetics, adult neurogenesis
- Dopamine in brains of schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease
- Electroconvulsive therapy, magnetic seizure treatment, and deep brain stimulation therapy in treatment-resistant mood disorder
- Neurobiology of genetic vulnerability to stress
- Neuronal signal transduction processes
- Cognitive/social neuroscience and eating disorders
- Sleep and arousal mechanisms, circadian rhythms, and the molecular clock
- Dissemination and implementation research, including medication algorithms
- Treatment resistance in mood disorders, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, substance abuse
- Effectiveness of interventions in real-world settings
- Psychiatric epidemiology
- Neuropsychology
Resident Wellness
We constantly look for ways to support our residents because we believe patient care is best provided by psychiatrists who have balanced and satisfying lives. Our vigorous Psychiatry Residents Organization runs many activities: "Families" program, social activities, weekly lunch meeting, yearly retreat day, regular movie nights. Our residents are leaders in initiating support programs for underrepresented minority residents, Muslim residents, and LGBT residents through the HEAL program (Housestaff Emerging Academy of Leaders). T-Group, an unstructured Training Group that emphasizes mutual support, problem solving, and experiential learning about small group processes, is an important source of peer support led by experienced group therapists. Our residents have access to the UT Southwestern Resident Wellness and Counseling Center and low-fee psychodynamic psychotherapy at the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center.
Residency Videos
Psychiatry Faculty and Residents Speak from the UT Southwestern North Campus:
Psychiatry Residency Experiences at William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital:
Psychiatry Residency Experiences at Parkland Hospital:
Location
Dallas, Texas, is among the top most diverse cities in the United States and celebrates its mix of cultures, religions, and lifestyles.