Child Psychiatry

Guided by a psychiatrist or child psychiatrist, you will develop a working understanding of key areas of child psychiatry, adding an essential skill set to your child neurology expertise.

Working in both outpatient child psychiatry clinics and inpatient consultation services, you will build competence in the major diagnostic categories of childhood disorders, encompassing:

  • attention deficit disorder/hyperactivity
  • learning disabilities
  • depression
  • conversion
  • childhood psychosis
  • school phobia
  • elimination disorders (enuresis and encopresis)
  • suicide
  • language disorders
You also will learn about treatment strategies, including:
  • behavioral principles for addressing common childhood problems
  • psychotropic medications
In addition, you will begin to understand multiple forms of normal childhood development, including:
  • psychological
  • social
  • cognitive
  • motoric

Psychological Concerns Affecting All Patients

You will enhance your ability to establish positive working and therapeutic relationships with parents and children, including hospitalized patients.

You will hone crucial communication skills and learn to elicit relevant information from children and families, including psychosocial, cognitive and developmental histories. You also will learn to discern pertinent findings by observing parent-child interactions.

You will gain an understanding of important psychological issues that will help you care for all patients, for example:

  • how to present a catastrophic diagnosis, including how and when to include children, siblings and extended family members
  • phases and timing of the grief process
  • behavioral principles in dealing with problems of hospitalized children, such as non-compliance, aggression and oppositional behavior
  • referring hospitalized children for psychiatric evaluation to optimize the likelihood that they will successfully engage in treatment
  • how and when to use mental health professionals

Patient Population

You will gain experience caring for children with:

  • depression
  • schizophrenia
  • bipolar illness
  • various behavior problems

Comprehensive, Career-Focused Learning

Complementing and enhancing your clinical skills, our robust didactic program includes relevant lectures in psychiatry and psychology.

Care Team

  • neuropsychologist
  • psychiatrist

In our collaborative practice environment, faculty in the child neurology and psychiatry (including child psychiatry) programs often consult with each other, providing the benefit of their combined expertise to medical trainees.

Caseload

30-40 patients

Year Taken

1 module

Clinical Site