Letter from Dr. Karam Radwan

Welcome to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry training program at the University of Chicago and thank you for your interest in our fellowship program. 

This is an exceptional time to consider fellowship training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The burgeoning developments in neurogenetics, neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, evidence-based psychotherapies, and rehabilitative strategies have significantly expanded the therapeutic armamentarium that psychiatrists have to offer their patients. The University of Chicago has a longstanding devotion to academic scholarship and rigorous thinking.  Our mission is to train fellows to become not only excellent clinicians, researchers, and teachers, but to foster an attitude of innovation and leadership as the basis for pioneering tomorrow’s state-of-the-art treatments in all the aforementioned disciplines. Our Program is accredited by the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) which reflects our strong commitment to education and outstanding clinical training.

Every year we welcome a diverse body of fellows, as reflected by their unique academic backgrounds, talents, strengths, and viewpoints. We believe that it is through such diversity that our program is strengthened. We are also proud of the breadth and depth of opportunities that we can offer our fellows, specifically with a strong emphasis on clinical training. This is made possible by the strong dedication of our faculty and staff to an empirical inquisition. Most of our faculty members, in addition to being talented teachers, are also avid investigators of well-established research programs. This has traditionally provided our fellows with an unparalleled milieu of scholarly endeavor, curiosity, and mentorship necessary to help them become competent clinicians. We are also mindful of the fact that realizing one’s fullest potential is closely tied to personal growth. Towards this end, the department strives to develop close supervisory relationships and process groups with our fellows in order to support them in reaching their professional training goals.

The program is also buttressed by solid didactic components aimed at enriching our fellows’ basic fund of knowledge as a strong theoretical basis to all clinical care.  By becoming critical readers of psychiatric literature, fellows gradually step into more sophisticated roles of educators of other health professionals and trainees all while initiating and pursuing their own research and clinical interests. Our section maintains close and collaborative ties with both the adult psychiatry and clinical neuropsychology program. This has traditionally provided rich opportunities for didactics and research.

We are also excited to add that, in 2016, the family of Dr. Harold Plotzky, MD generously established a permanently endowed fund to enrich the educational experience of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship. This fund is earmarked for the support of educational and professional opportunities, (including research, conference fees, and associated travel, and other educational materials).

Our fellows, upon completion of their training, gain the competence of functioning both independently and as consultants to pediatricians, neurologists, school systems, community-based agencies, and the court system. Our program, with its strong emphasis on leadership, research, clinical care, and didactics equips the new graduate with the necessary parameters to secure full-time positions in prestigious academic institutions, national psychiatric organizations as well as establish a successful private practice.

As program director, I invite you to become acquainted with the different rotations, offered by our program, as well as the academic and clinical interests of our talented faculty and staff here at the section of child and adolescent psychiatry.  On behalf of the entire program, we wish you success in making an important career training decision and look forward to hearing from you.