Amer Smajkic M.D. is currently a 3rd year Psychiatry resident at UIC. He arrived at USA in 1994 as a refugee of war from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is originally from Sarajevo. Dr Smajkic worked as a mental health counselor for Bosnian Refugees since 95 to 2001 at Chicago. He also established a professional academic relationship with the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Illinois at Chicago, with Drs. Stevan Weine and Ivan Pavkovic as mentors. Under their leadership, he has participated in numerous research projects. Studies examined include PTSD treatment models, the effectiveness of treatment with testimony and medications, the discontinuation of medications after treatment of PTSD, access to services, recipients and non-recipients of services, community and family factors, and international trauma training. He came to respect the value of new knowledge discovered through sound research studies in providing practitioners with rational tools to ensure effective treatment.

Dr. Smajkic is interested in child psychiatry and he is starting his training at Rush—Presbyterian Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in July 2004. Dr. Smajkic’s research objective is studying the long term consequences of War and Resettlement in children and adolescents from Bosnia and Herzegovina.