Department News
State of the Department
Joseph Flaherty, MD
Head and Professor

Psychiatry is now uniquely positioned to explore and intervene on mental illnesses in deep and powerful new ways. With the developing technology of functional magnetic imaging and spectroscopy, we can now localize specific anatomic sites of major disorders and functional damage. That capability could soon lead to early identification and more effective treatment and rehabilitation. We can measure transmission of an action potential along a single neuron, and are beginning to decipher the root molecular causes of depression and neurodegenerative diseases. Genetic techniques now afford us the opportunity to find allelic sites for psychiatric illness as well as the molecular mechanisms that create proteins -- normal and abnormal -- that effect human behavior in health and illness. New, carefully constructed juvenile intervention programs have yielded dramatic reductions in violence, substance use, HIV/AIDS and incarceration among at-risk children.

I am pleased that the Department's veteran and newly recruited faculty are on the forefront of these discoveries. The scope of our activities is staggering. We are one of a handful of departments that genuinely span from the molecular to public health with leading programs in neuroscience, clinical psychiatry, childhood prevention/intervention, epidemiology, biostatistics, and psychiatric rehabilitation and service planning. Equally gratifying is the strong support from the College of Medicine and the University in so many ways -- most tangibly in the renovation of the Psychiatric Institute laboratories (phase I in 1997 and phase II in 2002), the Neuropsychiatric Institute (2000), and the planned construction of a new Institute for Juvenile Research (2002). Likewise we are strengthened by relationships with partners such as the VA Chicago system; Advocate Health Systems (Ravenswood and Lutheran General); the Community Mental Health Council; the state departments of mental health, Children and Family Services, and area hospitals, health centers and consumer organizations. Nationally and internationally, we now enjoy a much-deserved reputation in keeping with the legendary scientists, psychiatrists and teachers who've graced our halls.

More than ever we realize that while much has been given to us, much is also expected. Our collective efforts bring new hope for identifying and treating psychiatric disorders and improving the wellbeing of our society. I invite you to read this report on the breadth and depth of our fine programs and discover the many ways in which the UIC Department of Psychiatry is making a difference, now and into the future, for the betterment of humankind through deeper understanding of behavior.