UC San Francisco Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences faculty member John Chamberlain, MD, has been selected as this year's recipient of the Henry J. Kaiser Award for Excellence in Teaching in an Ambulatory Care Setting. Chamberlain is a health sciences clinical professor of psychiatry, assistant director of the UCSF Program in Psychiatry and Law, and the UCSF Psychiatry Residency Training Program's site director for Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and the Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building.
The Henry J. Kaiser Awards for Excellence in Teaching were established in 1969 with funds provided by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. They bestow significant academic distinction, as well as a monetary award, to recipients in several categories. Faculty members who teach medical students or residents are eligible for nomination, and only medical students and residents can make nominations.
Chamberlain completed his medical training at UC San Diego, followed by a residency in psychiatry and fellowship in forensic psychiatry at UCSF. During his fellowship, he evaluated defendants for both federal and state courts, performed evaluations at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, spent time at the medical examiner's office examining cases of suicide, and completed a research project on attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide.
In 2002, joined the faculty at UCSF as director of the adult consultation-liaison psychiatry service, then transitioned to his current position in the Psychiatry and the Law program. He is responsible for the criminal curriculum for the program's trainees and also lectures on testamentary capacity, psychological autopsies, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Chamberlain continues to perform forensic evaluations related to criminal and civil proceedings.
Beginning in 2010, Chamberlain worked at UCSF's Deaf Community Counseling Services Clinic as an adult psychiatrist and served as the clinic's medical director from 2011 to 2012. He maintains an outpatient practice in clinical psychiatry providing consultation-liaison services, medication management services, and psychotherapy services. Chamberlain helped to develop the department's risk assessment training program and has been a part of this program since its inception.
He was named a Distinguished Fellow by the American Psychiatric Association in 2019 and has also received a number of other recognitions, including the Alexander Simon Award for Excellence in Teaching and the LPPI Alumni Faculty Interdisciplinary Award.
Chamberlain will be presented with the honor at the 2024 UCSF School of Medicine Teaching Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, Oct. 29, at Genentech Hall on the UCSF Mission Bay campus. The event, hosted by the UCSF Center for Faculty Educators, will also be streamed live via Zoom. Advance registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendees.
About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a focus on providing unparalleled patient care, conducting impactful research, training the next generation of behavioral health leaders, and advancing diversity, health equity, and community across the field.
UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including the UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building; UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Health medical centers and community hospitals across San Francisco; UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland; Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; the San Francisco VA Health Care System; UCSF Fresno; and numerous community-based sites around the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Neurology, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.
