Chair's Message
Welcome to the UIC Department of Psychiatry.
Since its early beginnings in the 1890s, our Department has an esteemed history of providing outstanding service in meeting the mental health needs of the people of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and beyond. From the beginning, clinical services have been enhanced by a strong tradition of excellence in psychiatric research that includes basic neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience, health services, and interventions. Education is another strong domain in the department and our programs have been consistently informed by the most current and innovative thinking in the field of psychiatry.
The Department is staffed by approximately 32 Board Certified psychiatrists, 40 Residents, and eleven Fellows, as well as Licensed Clinical Psychologists, Doctors of Social Work, Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Nurses with both doctorates and master's degrees, Clinical Nurse Specialists, Occupational and Music Therapists, and Licensed Marital and Family Therapists. The Department of Psychiatry supports approximately 50,000 outpatient visits per year and approximately 13,500 inpatient days each year, and is one of the largest psychiatry programs in the Midwest. Currently there are accommodations for thirty five adult inpatients and nine pediatric inpatients (designated solely for children through the Department of Child and Family Services) at the University of Illinois Medical Center.
Nationally, the Department consistently ranks in the top 20 in National Institutes of Health funded research, as well as first in Chicago and in the top three the Midwest. In addition to senior and mid-level researchers, we offer competitive training programs and post-doctoral fellowships in many aspects of mental health research. These include programs in child psychiatry and children’s mental health, a research track for residents in psychiatry, and a research component to clinical fellowship programs, including women’s health and psychosis. Excellence in research has gone hand-in-hand with rigorous and comprehensive education programs which have trained generations of mental health professionals to the highest standards of compassionate and ethical patient care.
The department hosts three institutes (Institute for Juvenile Research, the Psychiatric Institute and the Neuropsychiatric Institute), two federally-funded centers (Mental Health Intervention in Schools, and Mental Health ServicesandResearch Policies), as well as the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Center for Health Statistics, the Center of Neuro-development Disorders, the Center on Mental Health Services, the International Center on Human Responses to Social Catastrophes, the Pediatric Brain Research and Intervention Center, and programs on HIV and Addictions Neuroscience, and Mood Disorders and Suicide. Our Center for Cognitive Neuroscience is among the first in the nation to use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) for clinical purposes.
Several faculty members are national leaders in their respective fields. The Department’s faculty and research staff have had over 200 peer reviewed articles published in just FY 2010 alone. Many of these articles appeared in such top-tier journals as JAMA, Molecular Psychiatry, PNAS, Archives of General Psychiatry, Nature, and Biological Psychiatry.
In combination, the department has developed a comprehensive and integrated approach to address major psychiatric disorders and to improve diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illness. For example, combining basic neuroscience and imaging in schizophrenia and autism has allowed for early identification of these disorders as well as a solid clinical program for first-episode schizophrenia. Expertise developed in child and community psychiatry has enabled screening for children in the public school system at risk for schizophrenia and bipolar illness. Anxiety disorder research has led to one of the Midwest’s strongest programs for combined pharmacological and cognitive behavior therapies. Our women’s mental health program has a national reputation and has been recognized with the American College of Psychiatry’s prestigious Gold Achievement Award for innovative mental health services.
We are also looking forward to the future with efforts in community psychiatry, neuroscience and translational research. With this strong foundation, we are well positioned to participate in many new and exciting developments in the area of mental health and behavior.
This is a record of achievement and ongoing effort of which we are very proud, particularly as we witness the courageous progress of our patients and their families. I encourage you to explore our website to learn more about our activities and the great people behind our success.
