---

Educational Philosophy

 

Our vision is that children, adolescents and families will be able to access psychiatric assessments and appropriate treatment within their communities. Our mission is to produce child and adolescent psychiatrists who will provide effective psychiatric services to children and families in need. Our education philosophy is that resident education needs should be driven by both the needs of the individual trainee as well as by the fact that there are core training elements (assessment and treatment) that must be taught and learned in order for fellows to practice child/adolescent psychiatry effectively. Service demands do not guide our approach to education.

 

Physicians who train with us will be exposed to all evidence-based psychosocial and pharmacological treatments for children, adolescents and families. Our training philosophy provides progressive autonomy as fellows advance and supervision is provided to ensure fellows will master the skills they need to become excellent child/adolescent psychiatric practitioners. Rotations are provided in settings that represent the treatment venues in which most child/adolescent psychiatrists work. We focus not only on the symptoms and behaviors with which our patients present but also on the context within which they live, including family, school, neighborhood and friends as well as issues such as social determinants of health (transportation, shelter, food) in order to truly understand our patients' situations but also to develop novel and effective ways to intervene. Because our field is constantly growing and changing, we strive to inculcate the notion that learning is a life-long process and residency and fellowship training are just the beginning of the child/adolescent psychiatry learning experience.

 

A graduate of our Fellowship Program in Baton Rouge will:

1. Possess a strong identity as a physician and child/adolescent psychiatrist
2. Be an expert in diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and substance use in children and adolescents and their families
   1. Diagnosis and assessment
      1. Will have intimate knowledge of the DSM
      2. Will have the skills to conduct a thorough assessment
      3. Will know and use evidence-based assessment tools
      4. Will be able to formulate a case and develop an effective treatment plan
   2. Treatment
      1. Will have a thorough knowledge of psychopharmacology and its applications to child/adolescent patients
      2. Will learn and be able to implement evidence-based psychosocial treatments for infants, children, adolescents and families
      3. Will have a working knowledge of various approaches such as infant treatments like parent-child interactive therapy and child-parent psychotherapy, psychodynamic treatments, cognitive and cognitive/behavioral treatments as well as evidence-based programmatic treatments such as dialectical behavioral therapy, multi-systemic therapy, functional family therapy, among others.
   3. Possess interpersonal strength and practice in accord with ethical principles
      1. Demonstrate a high degree of professionalism and personal awareness
      2. Demonstrate flexibility and maturity
      3. Will recognize one's own biases and will work to minimize their effect on patients
   4. Possess a special sensitivity to children and their needs
      1. Will understand how context impacts child-related behaviors and symptoms
      2. Will understand how family is the key to development and optimal functioning
      3. Will understand how bias impacts children with special needs as well as those who operate outside of the usual norms.