From the Program Director
Each year the field of child and adolescent psychiatry brings with it more opportunities
for improving the lives of children and their families; yet it finds itself faced
with many challenges – challenges brought about by the pressing need for more evidence
based therapies and by the absolute need for greater access for those in need of psychiatric
services to well-trained child and adolescent psychiatrists.
It is with these opportunities as well as these challenges at the forefront that we in the Division of Child, Adolescent and Family Psychiatry here at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University anticipate a new training year, one devoted to improving our academic rigor and expanding our learning environment to facilitate professional growth and development among both our trainees and our faculty.
Some goals for upcoming academic year are highlighted below:
- Welcome a new faculty in September and continue recruitment of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Faculty.
- Continued focus on creating an educational environment to encourage greater active involvement of both faculty and trainees at all levels, clinical and didactic.
- Continued refinement of our newly developed rotation in Student Health at Augusta University.
- Continued refinement of our group and Individual therapy programs @ AU Health. Our fellows gain experience in DBT Group Therapy, DBT individual therapy, CBT individual therapy, Play Therapy, Family Therapy, and Social Skills Group for high functioning patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder .
- Increasing collaboration with primary care working with the Pediatrics Enhanced Primary Care Clinic, and through our consult liaison service.
- Continuation of our Post Pediatrics Psychiatry Portal Program, which allows fully trained pediatricians to train in Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in three years.
Our trainees continue to be productive academically. Over the past several years
our residents have published papers, presented workshops and posters at various national
meetings (including AACAP, AADPRT, APA, GPPA, and IPS). Trainees serve or have served
in the past three years on major components of both the APA and AACAP, including AACAP’s
Committee on Lifelong Learning. Over the years a number of our trainees have been
awarded the Advocate of the Year Award by the Georgia Council of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, giving us representation from our Program and from Georgia at AACAP’s
Legislative Day in Washington, DC. Trainees have served as the resident representative
to the Board of the Georgia Council on Child and Adolescent psychiatry every year
since 2010. Opportunities abound and our trainees are encouraged to take advantage
of both regional and national ones as they arise.
Our training program in child and adolescent psychiatry is well established and has
enjoyed the highest accreditation status available from the ACGME for its past several
accreditation cycles without citation. Every member of our faculty is dedicated to
educational excellence and our goal is to provide qualified applicants with a comprehensive
experience that will allow the development of competence as a child and adolescent
psychiatrist, understand normal and pathological development across the continuum
from infancy through adolescence. Our graduates are prepared to practice in almost
any academic, clinical or consultative setting, and indeed our graduates go on to
academic, community, and private practice professional careers.
Please browse our website to learn more about our clinical and didactic programs,
and their goals and objectives. We are fully integrated with our general psychiatry
program and can offer an integrated child and adolescent psychiatry training program
with the general program over 5 years for highly motivated and interested applicants.
Our program offers some unique experiences through some cultural and spirituality
conferences where residents learn experientially about relevant cultures and faith
traditions of patients and families they will be seeing.
Our faculty is diverse and members have broad interests as you can see from our website,
including ADHD, Psychotic Disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and the hearing impaired.
Opportunities for research experiences are readily available throughout training.
Faculty members are actively involved both regionally and nationally in leadership
roles in CAP. Dr. Lewkowiez is on the Board of the Georgia Council of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry. Dr. Peeples is active on the Media Committee of the AACAP and the Georgia
Council Communications Chair. Dr. Azeem is the clerkship director for psychiatry,
and is very focused on medical student education. Dr. Londino is a member of the
PRITE and CHILD PRITE Editorial Boards and served a number of terms writing questions
for the CAP portion of the ABPN examinations.
Again, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is an exciting and rapidly changing field, which offers practitioners any number of opportunities for combining various experiences into productive and rewarding practices. For more information about the field, explore the “Medical Students and Residents” section of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry website (www.aacap.org). For more information about our program, please email me at dpeeples@augusta.edu.
I look forward to exploring with you your pursuit of child and adolescent psychiatry training and your interest in joining us here at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
Dale Peeples, MD
Program Director
Professor
Division Chief, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University