Addiction Psychiatry Program
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
We are excited to announce that the University of Utah Department of Psychiatry's first Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship class was approved for a start date of July, 2011 and our first fellow began training on October 3, 2011, and our second fellow started on July 1, 2012.
We are an academically based program with strong clinical, research, and teaching opportunities. Our teaching faculty includes four Board-certified Addiction psychiatrists with extensive experience in public, private, academic, administrative, and government settings. Our newest faculty member and associate fellowship program director, Michelle Bauer, M.D., is an addiction psychiatrist on the VA Medical Center staff. She moved to Utah from the University of Miami Medical Center, where she was the program director for the Addiction Psychiatry fellowship for several years.
Our one-year training program is primarily based at the University Neuropsychiatric Institute (UNI) and the VA Medical Center, with significant rotations at the University of Utah Hospital (Consult/Liaison and HIV Clinic). All sites and faculty are affiliated with the University of Utah Health Sciences Center. We have strong continuity outpatient clinics at the VA Medical Center and at UNI. Our elective training sites include Odyssey House Residential Treatment Center and the Valley Mental Health Adolescent Residential and Educational Center and we plan to add more options for elective rotations.
Utah has been hard-hit by the prescription drug addiction epidemic, but all types of addictions are seen in our patients--alcohol, heroin, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, designer drugs, prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, inhalants, etc. Fellows in this program will see a wide range of patients ranging from "VIPs" and professionals to underserved persons. The patient population includes persons with addiction only, as well as those with complicated co-occurring diagnoses, and addiction with medical co-morbidities.
Our department offers strong research opportunities for those who are interested in this aspect of addiction psychiatry, and there is a potential for an additional year of addiction psychiatry research training if funding is available for the additional year.
Since our program is new, our fellows will have an opportunity to help shape the development of the program. We look forward to hearing from you, and hope you will take the opportunity to visit us. Utah and Salt Lake City are great places to live and work. Take a look at our program, and please consider applying if you are interested in the exciting and expanding field of addiction psychiatry!
Elizabeth F. Howell, M.D.