Background

We aim to build a pipeline of psychiatry talent eager to serve the residents of LA County. For more than 20 years, DMH and the Semel Institute/UCLA Department of Psychiatry have partnered to create a training and clinical service opportunity that brings UCLA Westwood/DGSOM Adult Psychiatry Residents, Child Psychiatry Fellows, Forensic Psychiatry Fellows, and Geriatric Psychiatry Fellows to selected DMH-operated outpatient clinical settings. 

Goals & Services Provided

The UCLA Westwood/DGSOM Psychiatry residents and fellows provide direct clinical services for LAC DMH patients, under the supervision of the DMH career psychiatrists with UCLA faculty appointments.

Goals include:

  1. Providing DMH an expanded physician labor pool during the resident and fellow clinic sessions that allows for a greater volume of patients to be served.
  2. Creating an environment that fosters collegial professional connections between UCLA Westwood/DGSOM Psychiatry residents and fellows and DMH career psychiatrists and other staff that might encourage early-career psychiatrists to pursue public psychiatry roles at DMH after they complete their training. 
  3. Providing UCLA Westwood/DGSOM residents and fellow with public mental health outpatient experiences in settings supervised by DMH career psychiatrists with UCLA faculty appointments.

Programs

The primary site of Adult Psychiatry residency programming is the Edmund D. Edelman LAC DMH Child/Family Mental Health Center on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Child fellows rotate at the Augustus Hawkins Mental Health Center, Geriatric Fellows rotate at the GENESIS program, and Forensics Fellows rotate in the courts. 

Participants

Trainees: UCLA Westwood/ DGSOM Psychiatry residents from post-graduate years 3 and 4.  Child, Geriatrics, and Forensics Fellows from post-graduate years 5 and up.

LAC DMH Career Psychiatrists:  Nancy Nowlin-Finch, MD, Andrea Moskowitz, MD