We are eagerly developing a seamless liaison with Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital and Madden Mental Health Center for our education and training needs. The combined clinical facilities on ground here offer an excellent clinical base in Psychiatry - perhaps no other department in Chicago area can write about.
It is well known that sustaining a viable clinical service is a major challenge for any academic psychiatry department. Our main asset is a resilient and productive faculty whose effort with renewed support of institutional leadership has helped the department to regain it’s momentum.
A major effort is focused on enhancing the educational enterprise, thereby attracting strong residents into the program. Residents and faculty have rallied behind this approach and greatly enhanced the recruitment process for psychiatry and psychology residents. This last academic year the department filled all of its positions in the match. There also have been dramatic advances in research activities at the department, initiating increase in funding, manuscript publications, and scholarly presentations.
Consistent with these educational developments, there has been a revival of interest in psychiatry among medical students at the Stritch School of Medicine, with a vibrant psychiatry interest group now going into the 5th year and has clearly ignited interest in psychiatry among our medical students – 2-3 students choosing to go into Psychiatry per year.
Mental illness touches many of our lives, and the statistics about the incidence and prevalence are not easy numbers to read and it’s coexistence with other physical illnesses is even more staggering. Thanks, though, to ever evolving improvement and progress in mental health care now available and cutting edge of knowledge-base that is so rapidly developing in our field.
I passionately believe that we are in the right place to grow and further establish as one of the most accessible health centers in Chicago area - juxtapositioned between the city of Chicago and its western suburbs and having Gottleib Hospital in our Loyola group.
This website is a new venture for us and we wish to continue to improve the content of this site. I hope that you find this website informative and that you will want to be kept up to date with our department’s progress. Please feel free to take part in its development by telling us your ideas for future content and updates.
Thank you and we hope you log-on regularly.
Murali Rao, MD, DFAPA, FAPM
Professor and Chair
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences