Didactics

Our program believes that a well-rounded clinical experience coupled with a comprehensive core curriculum is the key to training the next generation in the field of psychiatry. For residents in each year of the program, formal didactics are held one half-day a week during protected time in which residents are excused from their clinical responsibilities. As part of our recent program redesign, we took the opportunity to create a unique “spiral” curriculum that uses evidence-based educational principles to modernize the way our residents learn, including sequenced programming, intentional repetition, and active learning.

The curriculum during PGY-1 and PGY-2 is our Foundation Series. PGY-1 includes core diagnostic lectures with an overview of all major mental disorders, introductions to psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and neuromodulation, paired with essential grounding in the social scientific and humanistic dimensions of mental health. Didactics during PGY-2 take those core concepts and expand upon them, with a focus on advanced diagnostics, psychopharmacology, structural competency, neuromodulation, and psychotherapeutic techniques.

As PGY-3 and 4 residents, core themes will be revisited yet again in the Synthesis Series. Residents will be challenged to review essential basic knowledge, contextualize it within the critical literature, connect it to the social experience, and then create new practical tools for their future independent practice.

Beyond our core curriculum, additional educational opportunities take a variety of forms. Grand Rounds presentations are held weekly at the UCLA campus. Catered lunches during the week feature invited speakers and journal club presenters. And, of course, we aspire to be the teacher of teachers through a broader culture of near-peer mentorship and teaching, including the Clinician-Educator Concentration.

Core Threads

Grand Rounds

Lunch Talks

Core Threads

Grand Rounds

Lunch Talks