Welcome to the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences! We are delighted that you are interested in our residency program.
This is an exciting time to be entering psychiatry! With ongoing discoveries in basic neuroscience, we increasingly understand the underlying mechanisms of our disorders. We have a wealth of effective treatments to offer our patients. Our department is actively involved in the creation of new knowledge and the development and application of psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and other psychosocial and biological treatments. In addition, we recognize that one of our greatest challenges as a field is the dissemination of effective treatments to those who need them, including the chronically and seriously mentally ill, urban and rural underserved and disadvantaged populations, and the vast majority of patients with psychiatric disorders who seek care in primary care rather than psychiatric treatment settings. We believe that psychiatrists are physicians who, as experts in brain and behavior, have a responsibility to advance the quality of psychiatric care and to reduce stigma associated with mental illness, not only through specialty practice, but also through consultation to other physicians and health care providers. Our department is extensively engaged in enhancing psychiatric care within mental health and primary care settings in our region, nationally, and internationally.
Fundamentally, our residency program aims to help every graduate become the best possible psychiatrist. We offer a rich array of clinical, didactic, and research experiences, with particular strengths and fellowship opportunities in addictions, child and adolescent psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, geriatric psychiatry, neuroscience and genetics, and health services research. We provide multiple opportunities to work with clinically diverse populations, and aim to inspire residents to make a difference by working with those most in need.
We hope that you will visit us and that we will have the opportunity to introduce you to our residents, faculty, and the residency program!
Jurgen Unutzer, M.D., M.P.H., M.A.
Chair, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Thank you for your interest in our residency program!
Welcome to the UW Psychiatry Residency Program! I am delighted that you are interested in learning more about us, and I am excited to share some of the many things that make the University of Washington a great place to train as a psychiatrist.
We train psychiatrists for the future of psychiatry. We start with strong education in the full range of biological, psychological and sociocultural psychiatry that is the foundation of excellence in clinical care. We are passionate about improving the reach of psychiatric services and delivery much needed mental health access to underserved populations. To support this goal, we offer training in a variety of community based practice settings such as primary care and other medical specialty clinics, in schools and correctional settings and teach residents how to deliver scarce psychiatric expertise through innovative approaches such as telepsychiatry, use of mobile technology, and team-based approaches like the Collaborative Care Model. Finally, we want to prepare residents to be leaders in any practice setting with skills in systems-based thinking, quality improvement, and advocacy.
We provide an exceptional learning environment.Our faculty of dedicated psychiatrists and psychologists provide excellent teaching in a wide range of effective treatments. We offer a large number of training environments that serve a diverse array of people, especially focused on underserved populations. For those interested in pursuing rural psychiatry we have Idaho and Montana regional tracks, as well as rural rotations across our five-state region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho). We are committed to continuously grow the range of training opportunities to meet the evolving needs of our residents. We are an ACGME-accredited program and are a 4-year program, with a 3-year curriculum for those entering as PGY-2s.
We are a community of collaboration.Our ability to attract a strong and diverse resident class means our residents create a strong community of peer mentorship and support. From our excellent research opportunities to our core teaching services, our faculty strive to partner with residents to provide mentorship and support to develop each resident’s individual goals to become a superb psychiatrist. We value and respect our residents’ perspectives and ideas. Our residents are actively engaged in our residency committees and are instrumental in our culture of continuous improvement.
We look forward to sharing more! We hope this website provides you with a comprehensive overview of our program including our clinical sites, rotations, curriculum and our amazing residents. We hope you will visit us in the beautiful Pacific Northwest so we can share with you how much we enjoy training our residents. Feel free to contact us directly if you have any questions about our program!
All the best,
Anna Ratzliff, M.D., PhD
Director, Psychiatry Residency Program
Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Depression Therapy Research Endowed Professorship
