Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program

Child's drawing

Welcome!

These are exciting times in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and at the University of California, San Francisco, we are thrilled to be at the forefront of the remarkable scientific and clinical developments in our discipline. Of course, with new knowledge and skills come new possibilities and opportunities. UCSF Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and our fellowship training program are evolving to prepare for a very bright future.

UCSF Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellows train within a comprehensive system of care which includes UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals at Mission Bay and Oakland, as well as Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, Edgewood Residential Treatment Center, and the San Francisco Department of Health. The diversity of our training sites, and the dedication and expertise of our faculty, create an incredibly rich training experience.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry training at the UCSF School of Medicine offers solid foundational education in the neurodevelopmental, biological, psychological, behavioral, and cultural assessment and treatment of children, adolescents, and their families. Residents participate in a structured, core clinical, research, and educational experience that includes hands-on training in specialty clinics including autism, DBT, ADHD, OCD, early psychosis, and pediatric neurology, as well as residential treatment, community clinics, school-based consultations, and child psychiatry consultation/liaison. We also provide training in brief and long-term psychotherapies from a variety of perspectives and traditions and strategies including supportive, psychodynamic, and family therapies along with crisis intervention combined psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, cognitive, and dialectical behavioral therapies. Direct attending supervision is provided for all clinical experiences. Critical thinking skills are enhanced by theoretical and evidence-based seminars and demonstrations by skilled clinical practitioners as role models and consultants.

Research and scholarship are fundamental extensions of being a UCSF-trained child and adolescent psychiatrist. Scholarly activity is an essential component of training, and fellows have the opportunity to pursue a scholarly activity with a mentor during their training. While all of our graduates may not pursue careers in child and adolescent psychiatry research, we strive to for each to understand the research process, be excellent consumers of the research literature, and to have significant, in-depth clinical and scholarly understanding in at least one area of child and adolescent psychiatry. This knowledge is reflected not only in their skill set but also in their ability to teach this to others.

At UCSF, we strongly support and encourage leadership, teaching, and advocacy opportunities for CAP fellows at the local, regional, and national level.

Our aim is to train innovative physicians from diverse backgrounds in a solid foundation of child and adolescent psychiatry, including neurobiology, development, family, social and school systems, research principles, psychopharmacology, and psychotherapeutics.

Through their passionate commitment to the field of child and adolescent psychiatry, these physician leaders will help to shape the future of behavioral healthcare delivery through their clinical, educational, advocacy, and research efforts.

We look forward to hearing from you.