Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship
The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program is an integral part of the UT Southwestern Medical School, Children’s Health System of Texas, and the Dallas psychiatric community.
Our mission is to develop child and adolescent psychiatrists with broad clinical and professional competence. We place great emphasis on developmental, biopsychosocial, cognitive, psychodynamic, cross-cultural, family systems and behavioral concepts. This emphasis includes knowledge of normal and pathological development, developmental neuroscience, and deviations due to environmental stressors, cultural differences, and psychopathology.
Our aim is to graduate psychiatrists who will be leaders in their field and at the cutting edge of evidenced-based treatments and innovative approaches to patient care. Fellows are encouraged to pursue a variety of career options with exposure to experienced Clinician-Educators and Researcher-Educators and laying a foundation of life-long learning and academic excellence. The rich and diverse patient population and myriad sub-specialty programming affords Trainees experience in caring for unique patient populations in hospital-based and community settings and prepares them to manage even the most challenging cases in this vastly underserved area of medicine. General Psychiatry residents, Neurology fellows, Pediatric residents, Medical students, Psychology interns, and Social Work students also rotate through the division’s training sites, ensuring a rich, multi-disciplinary training experience.
By the end of training in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, fellows will be able to:
- Perform effective evaluations and formulate diagnoses and treatment plans for developmental and biopsychosocial issues as noted in the Clinical Skills Evaluations
- Develop and monitor comprehensive treatment plans for children, adolescents, and their families in all settings
- Demonstrate competency in a broad spectrum of therapeutic treatment modalities, including psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, crisis intervention, behavior management, education, and community planning
- Learn consultation/liaison skills in both medical and non-medical settings, including schools and legal settings with patients with substance abuse/dependence issues
- Develop the administrative and communication skills necessary for multi-disciplinary collaboration with pediatricians, pediatric neurologists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, therapy aides, teachers, and counselors
- Continue to expand knowledge of current and seminal research and literature in child and adolescent psychiatry
Graduates have entered private practice, accepted research and teaching faculty positions, become medical directors for inpatient and outpatient units in both the public and private sector, and pursued training in psychoanalysis and many other opportunities throughout the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex and the rest of the United States.
Community Track
The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Community Track focuses on training fellows to address the mental health needs of underserved youth and families (1 of our 10 fellowship positions per year is classified as Community Track). This track offers an applicant with interest in community child and adolescent psychiatry additional training exposure to community engagement and partnership. The Community Track Fellow’s employment, salary, and benefits are the same as fellows in the traditional track of the fellowship. We welcome a broad range of applicants, including, but not limited to, those interested in community systems of care. All applicants who feel they would benefit from a community-oriented fellowship experience are encouraged to apply!
- Year 1: largely resembles the traditional track, with rotations in specialized outpatient clinics in autism and foster care, intensive outpatient in substance use, pediatric neurology, day treatment, inpatient eating disorders, inpatient state hospital, consultation-liaison, school consult, and juvenile justice center
- Year 2: offers unique opportunities to work in outpatient community clinics focused on meeting the mental heath needs of underserved youth and families. Community Psychiatry Workforce Expansion (CPWE) is a program funded by the Texas Legislature through the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (TCMHCC) that allows our Community Track Fellow to have a community psychiatry experience under the supervision of a UT Southwestern child psychiatrist. The fellow will work with a multidisciplinary team in several community mental health centers and clinics in the Dallas area to provide care and learn the unique aspects of this population.
- Both Year 1 and Year 2 include a full day of protected didactic time.