Didactic Curriculum

A core weekly didactic seminar series is the academic cornerstone of each of the fist three years of training. These seminars are broad-based, dealing with practical and theoretical issues in psychiatry, as well as providing an overview of emerging new knowledge in our field. In addition, there are weekly interviewing courses for PGY-Is and a videotape interviewing seminar for PGY-IIs. There is a weekly psychotherapy course for second year residents and an advanced course on psychotherapy for senior residents. We have a weekly reading seminar, journal clubs, and advanced psychopharmacology course, and brief psychotherapy and family therapy courses. We make extensive use of videotapes and one-way mirrors in the teaching and learning of psychotherapy. There is a weekly Departmental Conference featuring distinguished local, national, and international experts, as well as department-wide case conferences. Each clinical service and team has its own clinical conferences and/or lecture series. In addition to these didactic offerings, each resident receives formal supervision from faculty on each team or clinical service and is assigned two additional clinical supervisors for work with outpatient cases.

As a major UCLA affiliate, Harbor is a site for the core Year III medical student psychiatry clerkship as well as for Year IV elective clerkships. There is extensive opportunity for medical student teaching. We annually participate in the national psychiatry resident in-training examination (PRITE) and expose residents to interviewing and presenting in a “boards” style format.

Los Angeles is an international city which attracts many local, national, and international scholarly meetings. In addition, scientific presentations are regularly offered by UCLA, USC, the Southern California Psychiatric Society, numerous family therapy groups, and the local psychoanalytic institutes. Residents are made aware of these special educational opportunities and their participation is encouraged and facilitated.